


Superposition

by nyxocity



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Fantasizing, First Time, Kissing, M/M, Masturbation, POV Sam Winchester, Post-Series, Pre-Series Dean Winchester, Pre-Series Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Pre-Series Sam Winchester, Rimming, Romance, Sibling Incest, Soulmates, Spn/J2 Big Bang 2020, Supernatural and J2 Big Bang 2020, Young Sam Winchester, post-series Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:34:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24836977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyxocity/pseuds/nyxocity
Summary: In their final hunt, the Winchesters fought God, and they won. Years later, Sam Winchester is a man on the run from a different threat, and he's a man who is beginning to tire of running. Filled with memories, he returns to Shell Beach, Florida, a place he'd visited on a hunt when he was 16 years old, where he met a girl he was drawn to, and Dean...Dean's teaching Sam new and interesting things, taking him around town, spending time alone together, and convincing Sam they should go to the beach carnival--a night that culminates in events that will change Sam's life forever. And back in present day, something is still coming for Sam: something that might lead him to what he's always wanted, or end with his final, irrevocable death.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 122
Kudos: 190





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [Art by Nisaki-Chan](https://nisaki-chan.tumblr.com/post/621669401691815936/my-art-for-ljfeed-spn-j2-bigbang-the-wonderful) (@nisaki-chan on tumblr) - Beta by Silver9mm
> 
> This story is a love letter meant to be a pair of bookends around the beginning and ending of the show.

PROLOGUE

_Present Day_

The sun sits at a sharp angle to the shore, golden light beginning to dip towards sunset. Waves roll and crash against the sand, pounding out an insistent rhythm beneath the graceful gulls that sweep and dive against a backdrop of perfect pale blue. 

It’s exactly the way he’d remembered it.

Sam stands on the beach, a man-made of patchwork pieces, love and hope, tall and thin, his mind a tangle of memories that pull at the corners of his mouth. The sun is warm against his skin, breeze light through his hair, and if he closes his eyes he can almost…

He senses the presence next to him before it even speaks.

“What is this place?” Castiel asks, and he can hear the angel frown, see Castiel’s expression without opening his eyes at all.

The gulls cry with a longing he remembers, that he still feels. He breathes deep, the scent of waves and wet sand filling him, smile still lingering on his lips, face upturned to catch the sun.

“Sam,” Castiel says, his voice filled with warning. “You can’t stay here. She’s coming.” Castiel hesitates, and Sam can feel his frustration, hear the rustle of his overcoat as he moves. 

Castiel…beautiful and immortal, wide face and deep blue eyes, voice like gravel and still failing to understand humanity after all these years.

“I can’t stop her.” Castiel admits the words like the worst kind of failure, sadness and irrevocable finality laced through them.

“I know.” Sam opens his eyes, turns towards him. “It’s okay, Cas.”

“Why are you here?” Castiel asks, his eyes crystalline blue in the afternoon sun, and Sam can hear the confusion in him, true curiosity layered just beneath. “I thought you would…”

Castiel trails off and Sam pushes his hands into the pockets of his jeans, waits.

“I don’t understand,” Castiel finally admits. “If you won’t run…why would you choose…” Castiel shifts within his coat, shoulders hanging at an uncomfortable angle. “What is the significance of this place?”

The wind rustles through Sam’s hair, breeze caressing his face and carrying with it the brief sound of Calliope music, sad and sweet, same as the smile it brings to his face.

“I fell in love here,” Sam confesses after a moment. “The first time I fell in love, it was here.”

“Love?” Castiel echoes, still confused. “Sam. She’s coming. Any moment now, and I can’t…”

“This place is where I felt alive for the first time.” Sam stares out across the open water of the ocean.

And then he says, “It might as well be the place I die.”

\---

_Shell Beach, Florida, 1999_

The Impala turns into a white concrete parking lot beneath bright sunlight, the motion too familiar as it slows, and Sam thinks it should be like home, like turning into a driveway, like everything known and loved should be a few short steps away.

It isn’t, though. It never is. It’s just another motel.

The Blue Moon Motel is an artifact from the 1960s, metal and wood painted a light shade of aqua blue with white trim, clusters of sparse palm trees rising up and hanging over it with fronds like a sad umbrella made out of hair. Sunlight falls in patches as they sway in the mild breeze that comes in off the ocean, smell of salt and brine and the distant sound of crashing waves. The sun is bright and hot, a glowing white ball that makes Sam squint through the car window of the Impala at his surroundings.

His dad kills the engine, radio dying into silence, barely hesitating before he opens the car door and climbs out. Dean follows close behind, and Sam sits there for a moment, tilting his head against the sunlight, gazing up through the long fronds of palm trees, green interlaced against the wide blue sky. He’s been to Florida before but the memory is hazy, half-lost to childhood and crowded out by so many others. It’s prettier than he would have expected, but there’s something else about it…something a little wild, he thinks, in the graceful curve of crowded palms and their rough, spiky leaves, the long grasses that hang over the edges of pavement, as if longing to devour it, the hungry mouths of the wildflowers scattered throughout. 

A loose fist smacks against the window as Dean passes by, startling Sam into the moment.

Sam opens the door, unfolds his long legs from the car and steps into the Florida midday heat that hangs wet and heavy, a palpable thing even through his thin, gray t-shirt. He shades his eyes against the sun, taking in the tangle of purple flowers that obscures the bottom of the motel office completely. The corners of the building stick up at an angle from the ground, spreading outward as they rise from the wild greenery. 

Through the huge glass pane window that reveals the inside, their dad is talking to a rail-thin, gray-haired woman wearing a white, wide-brimmed hat and white sunglasses with tiny pink flamingos perched on the brims. A pair of flimsy, white cotton pants billow around her legs, matched by a sleeveless button up shirt, her nails long and nearly the same shade of pink as the flamingos on her glasses as she makes a gesture in the direction of the rooms. Music drifts out through the open office door, the sound high and tinny, a song Sam knows from the oldies stations his dad flips on from time to time. 

He likes this one; Surfer Girl. There’s something about it. Sweet and sad at the same time. Wistful, maybe?

Wanting. That’s the word.

“You gonna stand there all day taking in the scenery, Sammy?” Dean asks, and Sam turns to see him standing there, two bags dangling from his hands, another strapped across his back. Light glints off the amulet that rests at the base of his throat.

“This is gonna be like a vacation,” Dean says with a wide grin.

When Dean smiles like that it’s like the sun coming down out of the sky, brilliant and burning a thousand different ways, and for a moment, Sam feels scorched by it, wants to grin back.

He takes a breath and glances away, skeptical. The motel looks ordinary—sand and sea and sky and a bit run down—like all the things a normal family would enjoy if they were on vacation. Sam can’t remember the last time they did something normal. He’s sure Dean doesn’t either. 

“It’s gonna be fun,” Dean says, in that way he has that’s completely convincing, even when he knows it isn’t true.

Sam wants to believe him. But they’re not here for anything fun.

Dean lifts the bag in his hand, muscles flexing beneath tanned skin, bicep curling, bare beyond the short sleeve of his black Metallica t-shirt, and Sam is mesmerized by the motion for a moment. There’s a scattering of freckles on the inside of Dean’s arm, their color darker now that Dean’s getting a tan.

“Sam, you in there?” Dean asks, like he’s actually a little concerned this time.

“Yeah.” Sam looks away from his brother again. “I’ll get the rest of the bags.”

He moves to the trunk, lifts a bag onto each shoulder, glimpsing a gold streak of keys through the air, flying from his father’s hands to Dean’s. Dean jingles them at the end of his fingers, motioning with his head for Sam to follow.

They move to the wrought-iron gate set into the low wall beside the office. The wildness is held back here; to each side, hydrangea bushes spill over the confines of carefully mulched soil, blossoms pale blue to vivid midnight scattering petals over the concrete sidewalk like fine snow. 

He guesses it’s pretty.

The iron gate creaks and Sam follows Dean into the courtyard. More palm trees loom, more blossoms litter the ground, and there’s a pool, deep and aquamarine, sunk deep into the cement at the center, flanked on three sides by the two-story building. Rows of doors stretch behind the aluminum railings, each of them with a number on it crowned by a small, crescent moon cut from seashell, tiny starfish caught inside the inner curve. Their room is on the second floor; it rests under the shadow of the roof where two building corners meet around the courtyard. 

He follows Dean up the stairs, watching his brother’s shoulder muscles flex beneath the tight stretch of his black shirt. Something about it bothers Sam, something he can’t quite put a name to. Dean could use some new shirts though, he supposes, ones that wouldn’t be stretched quite so tight across his shoulders like that, but Dean would wear hot pink before he’d get rid of that Metallica shirt.

“This is us,” Dean says, keys jingling.

The seashell on their door has fine, hairline cracks running through it, but it’s intact, the number nine glinting dull and brassy.

Inside, white mosquito netting drapes from the ceiling down over each of the double beds—slightly fancy and completely practical—and they set the bags down on the floor instead of tossing them on the bed like they usually would. The wallpaper surrounds them in pale blue, printed with faded white sand dollars and seashells, all the furniture made from white wicker and adorned with aqua cushions. There’s a TV and a VCR set on a table across from the beds, and a kitchenette with white appliances arranged neatly beneath skinny white cabinets. Real seashells litter the shelves and surfaces, some smooth and some ridged, some colorful, others the color of bone, pitted and pocked.

“Not bad, huh Sammy?” Dean asks with a grin.

It’s a little nicer than the places they usually stay, blue carpet immaculate and the smell of freshly laundered bedding, but Sam just shrugs.

“I saw a carnival on the way in,” Dean goes on, kneeling to open one of the bags. “We can probably walk to it from here.”

“I’m a little old for carnivals,” Sam remarks, eyeing Dean skeptically. 

“You’re never too old for a carnival,” Dean shoots back with an easy smile over his shoulder. “Popcorn, cotton candy, funnel cakes and all the creaky rides you can handle.”

“And clowns,” Sam adds, sullen.

“Comes with the territory,” Dean agrees with a light shrug. “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you, Sammy.” He throws Sam a quick wink over his shoulder.

Sam can’t quite hold back a smile. “My hero,” he says, wry.

“Damned straight.” Dean grins, and Sam can’t resist it this time.

“Okay,” Sam agrees, still not quite convinced. “We’ll go to the crappy carnival. Maybe it’ll even be fun.”

“’Course it will,” Dean scoffs. “You’re going with _me_.”

Daylight illuminates the room again, their Dad opening the door and shouldering through with the last of their bags. Faint dust motes dance in the heavy beams of yellow light that stream in behind him, leaving his features shadowy and indistinct.

“You boys getting settled in?” he asks.

“Yessir,” Dean responds, smooth and easy, hands digging through his bag.

Sam swallows and gives a half nod, moving to sort through his own bags. They’ll be here a couple weeks, at least, according to their Dad, so he might as well find somewhere for his clothes.

*  
  


June means there’s no school, and in Florida, it means most places are deserted, tourists preferring to visit during the winter months, gray skies and snow driving them south. Shell Beach probably isn’t a big tourist town anyway, too small and too far north to get much notice. Sam likes that about it though; it’s quiet here, no loud voices in the motel, no banging doors or crying children. He sees one elderly couple when his dad sends him out for ice, both of them dressed in pastel colors and wearing straw hats, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone else around.

When he returns to their room, ice cubes already beginning to melt, his dad and Dean are bent over the kitchenette table, journals and papers spilling across it as they speak in low tones. Dean doesn’t always go on hunts with their dad, but now that Sam is older he goes more often. 

Sam guesses this is going to be one of those cases.

Dean’s elbows are splayed wide on the table, body leaning forward between them, and the Metallica shirt is stretched to its limits across his shoulders. Dean doesn’t turn except to give Sam a quick glance, caught up in whatever their Dad is saying. Sam stands just inside the doorway, ice bucket in his hands, thoughts of the carnival filling his head, mingling with disappointment. 

_It’s just a crappy carnival_ , he thinks, throat clicking as he swallows hard, trying to push down the feeling. _You didn’t want to go anyway._

He watches them a moment longer and then sets the bucket on a wicker table, turning and letting himself back out into the heat.  
  


*

The beach is bereft of tourists and the colors that would fill it in the winter months in the more popular areas further south. Pale sand stretches out ahead as far as the eye can see, high grass rustling at the edges furthest from the water. All around the sky is pale blue and clear, save a few stray white clouds that linger, as if painted by a stipple brush. Wind blows in off the low waves, catching and tousling his long hair, and he doesn’t bother to take his hands from his pockets to brush it away, long having grown accustomed to it being in his face.

In the distance, he can see the shape of a Ferris wheel rising into the sky, the tips of colorful tents poking at the bottom edge of clouds. 

The carnival, he thinks, feeling disappointment churn inside him again. He bites down against the feeling, pulls his eyes from the sight, and keeps walking. 

The shore is very nearly deserted, but not quite. Her bikini is a light blue that nearly blends into the open sky behind her, as if the material had been cut from the sky itself, long expanses of tanned skin between. Hair straight and light brown, it descends in a line to the middle of her back, and she bends to one knee as Sam approaches, hand moving lightning quick to snatch something from the greedy tide.

She’s tall and slender, well-muscled with long, coltish legs, and she can’t be more than a year younger or older than Sam, he decides as he walks closer to her.

She cocks her head, squinting against the sun as she regards him, hand closed in a light fist pulled close to her chest. Sam’s debating whether or not to just keep walking past her when she smiles, plush, pink lips pulling in a broad smile.

“Hey. My name’s Dawn,” she says, rising to her feet. 

“I’m Sam,” he says, pushing his hands deeper into his jeans pockets. 

She’s maybe three inches shorter than he is, and he’s tall for sixteen. Freckles are scattered across her nose and cheeks above full, round lips, her jawline descending at sharp angles to a point at her chin. But nothing is as remarkable as her eyes, a brilliant shade of emerald that glints almost crystalline clear where the sunlight catches in them. 

“What are you doing out here?” she asks.

He lifts his shoulders. “Just going for a walk.”

“Well, you didn’t look like you were going for a swim,” she says, grinning as he looks him up and down. 

“What about you?” he asks.

Her eyes move back to her loosely curled fingers, considering. “I made a grab for some shark’s teeth before the tide pulled them back out. Not sure if I got them or not.”

The wind cascades through his hair, and he tosses it back from his eyes as he looks out across the vibrant blue ocean. “You ever see any of the sharks those belong to?” he asks, nodding at her closed hand. He means it mostly as a joke, but he _is_ curious.

She looks down at her hand, and then out across the ocean, long strands of brown hair lashing against her cheek. “No,” she says, the corner of her mouth curving in a small smile as she looks back to Sam. “But the water here is full of sharks.” She lifts a shoulder, shrugging. “So hopefully.”

“Hopefully?” he asks, arching a brow.

Her nod is barely perceptible. “Sharks rarely try to eat people. I think it’d be neat.”

Sam thinks about that, glancing down at the sand. “I guess they’re less dangerous than a lot of other things.”

She regards him, thoughtful for a long moment. “You’re brave. Are you from Australia?”

He finally laughs, shoulders relaxing as he leans back a fraction, hands still deep in his pockets.

“Yeah,” she says and grins, and Sam can see her relax as well. “You don’t sound like you’re from Australia.” And then, “Wanna see what I caught?”

In the distance, the Ferris wheel moves against the sky, long flags in every color of the rainbow flying from the tent tops. He gives them one last look and then focuses on her again, smiling. 

“Sure.”

She holds his eyes for a moment, smile playing about her lips, and then unfurls her fingers. A small, smooth, curved shark’s tooth rests within her palm, black shape stark amidst pale sand and white pebbles. She pokes at it with the tip of one aqua-blue painted fingernail, lifting it to the surface. 

“Thresher shark,” she tells him, moving closer to him. “They never eat humans,” she adds, smile growing wider.

She’s so close, and so beautiful, emerald eyes stunning in the sunlight, body lean and tanned, curved and graceful, bare skin and the smell of sun and sea. Sam feels his throat catch, tongue sticking when it’s supposed to be making words, and she laughs, tossing her long hair back over one shoulder.

“I promise they’re not scary,” she reassures him.

“I…” He means to say he believes her, rummaging around his brain for what little he knows about sharks.

Her attention moves from him, head cocking as if listening to a distant sound. Sam can’t hear anything except the slow roll and splash of waves.

“My sister’s calling for me,” she says after a moment, eyes rolling to one side. “I have to go.”

She wriggles her fingers, letting the sand sift between them like heavy rain, shark’s tooth and a few stray pebbles left behind, lying against the paleness of her palm. 

Without a word, without warning, she takes his hand, turning it over, his hand resting between both of hers for a moment, and then she drops something tiny and nearly weightless into it, her lips curving in a teasing smile. 

Sam’s far too aware of the nearness of her, the scent of her, the sun-warmed heat of her skin where it touches his.

“Don’t get eaten by sharks, Sam,” she tells him with a grin before she pulls away.

In the palm of his hand, the small Thresher shark tooth nestles, a few grains of sand still clinging to it.

When he looks up to say ‘Thanks’ she’s already gone.  
  


*

“Where’d you go?” Dean asks, arching a brow at Sam as he enters the motel room.

Dean’s lying on one of the beds, one knee drawn up, one arm wrapped underneath the pillow he’s resting his head on. He’s still wearing the Metallica shirt and his faded blue jeans, blown out at the knees with stray loose threads hanging from them, bare feet poking out at the frayed ends. Sam’s caught for a moment by the appearance of them—Dean rarely goes barefoot—they make him seem more exposed, vulnerable despite the fact that he’s splayed out on the bed, lazy and languid and graceful, like a lion. The mosquito netting around the bed is pulled back so he can watch something on the tv screen, fingers of his free hand curled around the remote.

Sam touches the sharp tip of the shark tooth in his pocket and shrugs. “The beach.” And then, “I thought you were busy with Dad, anyway.”

“Just details on the case.” Dean flips off the TV, sits up on the bed and tosses the remote aside. “Why? You jealous, Sammy?” Dean asks with a teasing grin. “Don’t worry, I didn’t forget about our date.”

_That_ gets under Sam’s skin, for reasons he can’t quite explain. Maybe because Dean’s right and he was jealous, but the feeling is strange and unfamiliar, the way it squirms and prickles inside him. He turns away from his brother, slight heat warming his cheeks and mutters, “Whatever.”

“Okay.” The tone of Dean’s voice is uncertain, like he isn’t sure what he said to make Sam upset. 

Sam walks to the fridge on the pretense of finding something to drink, but the fridge is empty, spotlessly clean and gleaming white like some kind of Arctic wasteland. He stands there for a few seconds anyway, bathed in bright light and not really thirsty, but needing something to do. 

“Listen,” Dean says after a moment. “Dad wants me to help him with some of the legwork on this case, talking to the locals and stuff. So I figure in a couple-few days, we can hit the carnival.”

Which means they might get to go. But they also might not, depending on what their Dad wants Dean to do. No one’s ever cared much about what Sam wants, except for Dean, but Dean’s not the one in charge. Sam has learned better than to expect anything normal or fun to happen in his life, and so he tries to let the idea go, little hurt on top of hurts piled up over the years. Sam lifts his shoulders in a shrug and lets the fridge door fall closed as he turns back toward his brother.

“Where _is_ Dad?” Sam asks, as much to change the subject as anything else.

“He went to get food.” Dean stretches, Metallica shirt rising to reveal a thin strip of skin just above his low-hanging jeans, and then gets up from the bed, moving toward Sam and the kitchen. 

“You hungry?” Dean asks as he passes by. “Did you get food at the beach?”

Sam turns, eyes following his brother’s movement, gaze still drawn to the edge of Dean’s shirt.

“No.” Sam answers, distracted. “I met a girl though.”

“That’s my boy.” Dean’s smile is proud as he turns, fingers squeezing Sam’s shoulder briefly. “She pretty?”

The warmth of Dean’s fingers against his shoulder lingers, and it takes Sam a moment to focus. “Yeah,” he replies, and then huffs out an appreciative breath. “She’s beautiful.”

Dean whistles, low and appreciative. “Watch out for those kind, Sammy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sam asks, half-curious and half-suspicious.

Dean shakes his head once and shrugs off the question. “Nothing. Just be careful, that’s all. Beautiful women have a way of getting you to do things you wouldn’t normally do.”

Dean knows a lot about certain things when it comes to girls, but there are other things Sam’s beginning to realize his brother doesn’t understand about them at all. Dean’s never mean to them, but he doesn’t take them very seriously, either. 

“Have there been girls that got you to do things you wouldn’t normally do?” Sam asks.

Dean’s answering smile is both dazzlingly pleased and full of chagrin. “Once or twice,” he says with a nod, and Sam can tell he’s thinking about something sexual just from the glint in his brother’s eyes. “Once or twice. There was this girl one time in Memphis…” Dean trails off with a disbelieving shake of his head, lips pursed as if about to say more.

Sometimes Sam is curious enough to listen to some of Dean’s sex stories—Sam’s only ever kissed one girl, and if anyone has pointers, it’s his brother—but he usually has to stop Dean before he gives too many details. Beautiful girls in obscure hotel rooms, too much skin and breath, lips and hips and the spaces in between, red and pink, soft and tight, and Sam doesn’t want to know. Doesn’t want to understand the irresistibility of the girl in Memphis. The length of her lashes, the shortness of her skirt, the color of her panties barely hidden beneath. The way she’d gotten Dean to do whatever she’d wanted.

Sam shakes his head. “I really don’t want to know.” 

“You might learn something,” Dean says, slow, dirty grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. The sight of it sends a hot flash of sudden irritation through Sam.

“Not everything is about sex, Dean.” The words come out harsher than Sam intends them, and he knows the moment he says them that they’re too much. 

Dean’s smile fades, Sam’s anger leaving him confused. But he doesn’t retaliate, doesn’t rise up to meet Sam head-on, eyes dropping off to one side and then upward as he seems to consider. And then a strange curiosity lights in his brother’s eyes, angle of his chin tilting as he meets San’s eyes. “Wow. You really like this girl, huh?”

Dean thinks he’s got it all figured out, just like he always does, subtle smirk at the corner of his mouth, green eyes lit from within with amusement, and Sam’s teeth come together with a hard click, frustration and annoyance bubbling like slow lava, rising. His cheeks burn, muscles knotted into tapestries between his shoulders, stories written across them he doesn’t understand.

“You got it bad,” Dean remarks, teasing lilt to his tone.

Sam rolls his eyes and spins around, stalking towards the door. He opens it and lets it slam shut behind him, taking the stairs at a quick clip, wet heat already hitting him like a wall.

A few minutes later, still breathing hard as he sits by the pool, he wonders what the hell he’s so angry about. 

It isn’t Dawn. He doesn’t think it’s about Dawn, anyway. But if it’s not about her then what?

Long moments pass, sun gold against blood-red as it begins to set.

His brother pads across the smooth concrete on nearly silent bare feet, sitting down at the edge of the pool next to Sam. He doesn’t say anything, just rolls up the frayed cuffs on his jeans all the way to the knees, bare feet and calves making ripples in the water as he dips them in, letting them hang over the edge. Dean swings his legs back and forth lazily through the water, hands braced on either side of him, so close to Sam that Sam can feel the warmth of him.

“I don’t know what I did,” Dean admits.

Sam breathes out a hard laugh. “Me neither.”

“Then we’re even,” Dean decides, like it’s fair, like any of this makes sense.

“So we’re okay,” Dean says, quiet and sincere, and he doesn’t say he’s sorry but Sam hears it anyway.

They sit in silence for a while, anger slowly dissipating inside Sam, curling like smoke, drifting away on the light breeze. 

“Yeah,” Sam says, just as quiet and sincere.

Dean slings an arm around Sam, fingers squeezing Sam’s shoulder and pulling him in close. They don’t touch that often anymore, ‘family’ a bond spoken and felt more than shown, but the weight and warmth of Dean feels like comfort, and Sam leans sideways, lets himself sink into it. The sun is setting, pink-orange light dancing on the ripples of the pool, and the sky is deep gold where it disappears into the shadows of palm trees in the distance. They sit side by side in silence, feet swinging in the water, watching it together until the pink and gold clouds fade into purple, slowly deepening into dark blue. Fireflies begin to blink all around them, tiny green-gold lights against the backdrop of tall grasses, crickets beginning a rising chorus all around them.

Bullfrogs lend their voices to the song, and Sam can hardly hear the ocean over the sounds around them. Sam rests his head against Dean’s shoulder, and for a moment, in the twilight, everything feels right.

[](https://ibb.co/xmWr1BM)  



	2. Chapter 2

They’re still sitting there when Dad calls them to dinner, offering buckets of chicken and over-processed sides. The sun has set, but Sam’s still leaning against Dean, feels the sluggish, reluctant response in his brother’s body reflected by his own.

“We don’t have to go,” Sam whispers, cheek rising from his brother’s shoulder fractionally, turning inward, looking up.

Dean turns toward him, mouth so close, green eyes locked on his. “Yes, we do.”

Sam bites down against his lower lip and nods.

It’s Dad, and Dean’s right. But he leans his cheek into Dean’s shoulder, steals a moment more.

*

They eat dinner mostly in silence, mashed potatoes scraped out of cardboard containers, fried chicken eaten down to the bone, green beans barely touched except for Sam, who goes back for seconds. 

There are two double beds, but Dad has his own room, throwing chicken bones into the bucket as he rises from the small, round table.

“Come on, Sam,” Dad says, hand on his shoulder, tugging him briefly in the direction of the door.

“I’m…” Sam pauses, uncertain. “I’m staying in this room.”

“Yeah.” His Dad nods. “Walk me out.”

Sam rises from the table, his last helping of mashed potatoes and green beans left behind. His shoulders are hunched as he walks towards the door, stepping outside it with his Dad.

Motel light shines down on them, fluorescent white, flickering and harsh and doing nothing to discourage the mosquitoes.

“Sam…” his Dad says, dark eyes sizing him up slowly. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.” The words rise from Sam like a reflex, given before he even thinks.

“You wouldn’t tell me if you weren’t,” John laments, his words without rancor. He hesitates, and then he says, “Sometimes I think I was lucky with Dean.” The darkness in his father’s eyes is almost too deep to fathom. “And sometimes I think I pushed him too hard.” John pauses and then nods, as if to himself. “Sometimes I know I did. But you...”

“I’m fine, Dad.” Sam conjures the words, pushing down any hurt.

“You’ve got Mary’s strength, always have,” his Dad agrees. “If it’d been me that died…things would be different.” His Dad’s eyes falter, falling from his. “You wouldn’t know about hunting and I’d just be a memory. But that’s not the world we’re living in, Sam.” Dark eyes meet his again, questioning. “You understand?”

He does. He doesn’t know what his mom would do, but he knows the world he’s living in, what to expect from it. It’s the same thing he’s known for the last sixteen years. And it’s never going to change. Always another hunt, searching for the monster that killed their mother, a woman he’d never even known traded for the life he could have had, and he loves her, in the way that he can. He’s sure she would have wanted different, that it _would_ have been different. But she’d died, burning on the ceiling, an effigy, an ideal, fifteen and half years ago and she’s frozen in time, still directing the course of their lives from beyond the grave.

He knows the truth, has for most of his life, so he nods, takes in his father’s words and tries to convey his understanding.

“While we’re here…” His Dad trails off, looking somewhere over Sam’s left shoulder, and then his eyes track back to Sam’s face. “I know I push you too hard sometimes, too, Sam. But while we’re here…try and have some fun, okay?”

Sam’s momentarily surprised, blinks and nods. 

“I love you, son.”

Sam fractures, weakens. His father has never been shy about confessing his love, but Sam doesn’t understand the shape of it. Can only see the obsession his father has dedicated himself to. The way it shapes all of their lives. He loves his father, in ways that he can’t give words to, defying explanation, he just _does_. He loves his father and he hates him.

His Dad grips him by the shoulder, firm, gentle squeeze, and Sam leans into it, tacit reciprocation, and his Dad gives him a brief, slight smile before he lets go, turns to go to his room. Sam watches him go for a moment, the wide set of his Dad’s shoulders, the worn leather of his jacket, wonders if this life is weighing on him tonight like it does on Sam; what it was he’d seen in Sam that had made him ask if Sam was okay. It seems to be the question of the day, he thinks, wry.

He takes a deep breath of the wet, warm night air and lets himself back inside the room. Dean’s getting ready for bed, tugging a plain white tank top on to replace the Metallica shirt he’d removed. Sam watches the way the light plays across the muscles of his brother’s lower back, the way his arms flex as he tugs the shirt down around his waist, bare skin golden in the low lamp light—

Sam catches his breath, feeling weird, like he’d seen something he wasn’t supposed to. He doesn’t know why; it’s just his brother changing his shirt like he’s done a zillion times before—so why does it feel like something stolen?

He hurries to the bathroom, brushes his teeth and changes, the image of Dean lingering in his mind, unable to banish it completely despite himself. He waits a few minutes longer, standing in the bathroom, holding his clothes and feeling awkward, like an idiot and unsure why. Finally, he rolls his eyes at himself and opens the door.

Dean is already in bed, fast asleep, cheek turned into the corner of the comforter, one foot sticking out from beneath the covers, ankle bare, black sock dangling as he snores softly.

Sam shakes his head, goes to his own bed and snuggles in deep beneath the comforter. Soft down pulled above his head that doesn’t drown out Dean’s breathing, pulls him in instead, and he falls into darkness, sound of his brother leading him down.

*

He wakes slowly in the morning, turning his face into the pillow, wishing for another hour’s sleep, but he’s wide awake. He sighs and rolls over, sitting up.

His brother is already gone, last night’s dinner mess cleaned up, blankets thrown haphazardly across his bed. Box of cereal left on the kitchenette table, clean, empty bowl and spoon set beside it, and Sam finds milk in the fridge among a few other things his Dad must have bought last night. 

He leafs through the scribbled notes and photocopied newspaper clippings his Dad and brother had left stacked on the table, trying to figure out what kind of case they’re working on. They’re all old clippings, nothing recent and nothing about disappearances. Just some murders that had happened ten years ago and some oddly supernatural circumstances surrounding them. One blurry, black and white picture shows a circle drawn on a floor, etched in white against wood, strange symbols filling the five-pointed star and surrounding the outside. The article talks about the possibility of a satanic cult offering human sacrifices to the devil.

Sam isn’t sure why they’re here to investigate ten years later, but he does recognize a couple of the symbols. A summoning circle for something, maybe, he thinks. But for what, he has no idea.

So if they’re not here to solve a recent case, then why… 

He takes another bite of his cereal, eyes lingering on the circle, and then he shrugs to himself. He could do some research on the symbols, find the local library and look some things up, but without knowing what the significance of their interest is, he’d be shooting blind in the dark. For all he knows, his Dad and Dean already know what they mean. His Dad’s let him help on cases before, taught him how to shoot and track down information as well as track down monsters, but his Dad seems to want to keep him out of this one. It rankles a little, slight bitterness swelling in his heart, but it’s not like he really enjoys hunting anyway. It _does_ explain why they haven’t tried to stop him from going out.

He already knows he’s going to the beach, some part of him hoping that he might run into Dawn again. At least she’d seemed to like his company, and he can’t imagine spending the whole day inside alone, watching tv. He washes his cereal bowl, showers and goes to his dresser drawers, towel wrapped around his waist as he considers how to dress.

He considers wearing swim trunks briefly, then discards the idea. The idea of being that naked in public, possibly around a girl, feels too weird. He’s tall now—same height as Dean, much to Dean’s chagrin—but he’s still on the skinny side and he’s not completely comfortable in his newer skin. He compromises with knee-length jean shorts and a thin t-shirt, tennis shoes pulled on last. He hesitates then, remembering.

He goes to his clothes from the day before, digging into the pocket of his pants. His fingertip catches on the sharp tip of something and he smiles, pulling out the shark tooth. He examines it for a moment, the black color, the smooth curve and perfectly sharp edges, and then he pushes it into his shorts pocket.

*

He walks down the trail to the beach, palm trees clustered around the edges like whispering secrets as the breeze passes through them. The way is deeply shadowed, even in daytime, leaves a thick canopy above him, and it feels like a hidden place, almost mysterious, even though he knows people must pass through it all the time.

He steps out into bright daylight, already sweating in the day’s wet heat, and begins to walk in the direction of the carnival in the distance.

She’s sitting out on a short dock, its wood bleached nearly white, boards beginning to warp with age, skin deep tan against it, bikini blending into the brilliant, clear blue sky. Beach grass waves, grown wild and tall around the posts of the dock, swaying in the gentle breeze, brushing at Sam’s legs as he passes. 

The dock creaks a little in places as he walks its length, but it’s solid beneath his feet as they carry him to the place where she sits near the end. He sits down beside her as she looks up, sweeping long chestnut waves of hair behind one ear as she smiles.

“Hey, Sam.”

“See any sharks today?” he asks as he settles in.

“Not yet. But the day’s still young,” she says, grinning.

There’s a moment, just the slightest awkward pause where Sam can’t think what to say, that coming here was a terrible idea and he’s going to have to find a way to leave without making things even _more_ awkward. It’s enough time for him to think this was stupid; he doesn’t know how to talk to girls. His only other romantic experience with a girl had ended with her killing her literal monster of a mother—and while it had all been for the good and the girl had been better off in the end, it’s not the stuff normal romantic experiences are made of.

What is he even doing here?

“I’m glad you came,” she says, and it’s sweet relief, like being thrown a life preserver.

He takes a moment, gathers himself, and he doesn’t have anything interesting to say, but he is curious. “So, what…what are you doing out here?”

She looks down at her feet, like she’s unsure how to answer, and Sam’s gaze follows hers. Her toes dangle at the verge of the water’s surface, each toenail painted the same shade of blue as her fingernails.

“Taking in the view,” she says after a moment. “Dipping my toes in the water.” 

“All alone?” he asks, and it’s stupid because obviously she’s alone.

She turns her face toward him, sunlight catching across her features, her smile brilliant as her eyes meet his. “Not anymore.”

They talk for a while, about sharks and mermaids and the shapes of clouds rolling past above them, their laughter light on the breeze, and finally, Sam begins to feel comfortable in his own skin, sitting there beside her. Just a normal girl and a not-so-normal boy, being normal together.

“So what about your family?” Sam asks, looking out across the water. “Shouldn’t they be out here sharing the view?”

“Shouldn’t yours?” she asks. “You’re not allowed to dig into my mystery unless I’m allowed to dig into yours.” She grins and folds her arms across her chest, as if resolved.

Sam laughs, head tilting back. “Okay. Fine. My Dad and my brother, Dean, are out working.”

“What do they do?” she asks, and the question is a familiar one; one he’d constructed a sensical answer for years ago.

“My Dad is a writer. We travel a lot, doing research for books. My brother wants to be a writer, too, so he helps.”

“What about you?” she asks, arching a brow at him. “What do you want to do?”

“I’m not sure,” he says, honest.

That’s a more difficult question, one he hasn’t settled on an answer for yet. He’s seen too much violence in his life, seen too much of vengeance in his father, faced more horror than anyone his age should be expected to. All his life, all he can remember is wanting something basic, something normal; a house with four walls and the occasional home-cooked meal, maybe a dog. He didn’t know what he did there, in that life, either, but he knew he wanted it. He still does, although the older he gets, the harder it becomes to see that future. Two lives, diametrically opposed in nature and composition, but they share one thing in common:

“I want to do something that helps people.” He’s certain of that much. “I haven’t decided what yet.” He looks up, meeting her eyes. “What about you?”

“I don’t know, either,” she replies. She shifts her weight slightly and a board beneath her creaks back a light response. “Not for a living anyway. I know I want to sail. Just to be out on the sea, be in charge of my own life, just me on the water with nothing but the sky above.”

The words resonate inside Sam, drifting between unspoken dreams and untold disappointments, finding places to catch hold. “Be in charge of my own life,” he echoes, tasting bitterness and hope in the words as he nods in agreement. “I want that, too.”

She looks at him sideways a moment, their eyes connecting, and Sam feels something pass between them, something like understanding and kinship. He lacks the words to describe it, but he knows he feels it, feels the way it brings them closer together.

They both glance away from each other, waves rolling gently against the shore in the silence between, and then she takes a breath, shifting her posture marginally again.

She tucks a wave of hair back behind one of her ears, looking at him curiously. “You mentioned your brother and your Dad… What about your Mom?”

“She…” There’s no other way to explain it, but it’s always awkward. “She died. When I was a baby.”

“Oh.” Dawn stills, emerald eyes reflecting sympathy. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” It’s not, really, it never has been, but the pain of his mother’s death doesn’t come from the memory of losing her; more from what his life is because of it. He shakes his head, and he’s talked enough about his own life for one day. He wants to know more about her, anyway. “What about you?” he asks.

“It’s not very interesting,” she admits, edge of mirth to her words. “I live here, with my Mom and my sister. Mom and Dad split a few years ago. He moved out to California with his girlfriend. We get phone calls, cards. Mom’s busy with work, my sister’s got her own thing going on.”

“Thing?” Sam asks.

“She works nights, but it’s all very hush-hush,” Dawn chuckles. “I think she’s a secret agent. Or maybe a drug dealer.” Dawn makes a face, smirking. “Probably a dancer though.”

“What’s she like?”

Dawn shrugs, a slight movement of her shoulders. “Bossy. Blonde.” She hesitates and then adds, “Pretty. Prettier than me, anyway.” The words are given almost grudgingly.

“I doubt it,” Sam murmurs, words almost lost beneath his breath.

“What?” Dawn asks, tipping her head towards him.

He considers for a moment and then says, “It’s the same with my big brother. Except less blonde.”

“You mean your brother is pretty?” she asks with a grin, nudging him with her shoulder.

Sam tilts his head in agreement. “A lot of the girls call him pretty. If he didn’t act like such a _guy_ all the time he’d probably get teased about it. But Dean’s got that cool guy attitude that makes everyone like him.”

She pauses in her movement, squinting at him slightly. “Do _you_ think he’s pretty?”

It’s an odd question, one he’d never given much thought to. He’s always just accepted that Dean is beautiful; as if Michelangelo had stepped out of heaven itself and carved the shape of Dean from fine stone, smoothly wrought muscles and perfect features, powerful and alluring, delicate and somehow completely masculine. Telling someone Dean is pretty is like telling them the sky is blue. It’s an obvious fact that doesn’t need to be remarked upon, and one he would never, ever admit to his brother’s face on pain of death. But it feels too strange to say to anyone else, either, so Sam just hunches his shoulders in a mild shrug.

She dips one leg, toes of her foot skimming the water, silvery stream of bubbles trailing in the wake. “Your brother means a lot to you.”

“He’s my brother,” Sam replies with a shrug. “Doesn’t your sister mean a lot to you?”

“I guess,” Dawn hedges, sighing. “I mean,” she pauses, and then says, “yeah.” She takes a moment, seeming to think before she goes on, “I don’t see her much lately.”

She’s probably lonely, Sam thinks. He gets lonely sometimes, too. 

“So you travel a lot?” She toes at the water, looking down at her foot as she asks the question. 

“Yeah,” Sam affirms. It seems like a casual question, and it probably is, but he feels like he needs to explain, hesitates for a long moment, thinking what he wants to say isn’t what he’s _supposed_ to say. But somehow he doesn’t think she’ll judge him for it.

“I keep…” he begins, and then takes a breath. “I keep hoping one day we’ll stop somewhere and settle down, but I don’t think it’s ever going to happen.”

“You want a home?” she asks, pulling her eyes from the water as she looks at him.

“Doesn’t everyone?” Sam is surprised by the question.

“I’ve got a home,” she says, snorting lightly. “Trust me, it’s not that great.” She glances away from him again. “I think it would be great to travel.” Her eyes turn out toward the horizon, sunlight catching in them. “Sometimes I think home isn’t a place as much as a feeling.”

The words hang there for a long moment between them.

“I think sometimes it can be a person,” she says, canting her head to one side, looking up at Sam through her lashes.

She’s so close to him, vulnerability just below the defiant tilt of her chin, and Sam puts his hands on her sun-warmed shoulders, beginning to pull her in...

“Sam!” Dean’s voice calls out in the distance, destroying the moment completely.

Sam jumps, yanking away from her as if he’d been caught red-handed by his brother, momentarily embarrassed though he isn’t sure why. There’s no question of ignoring Dean; his brother would just come looking for him, pissed off that he’d had to find Sam, and besides, it’s probably important, anyway.

“I’m sorry,” Sam sighs, trying to think how to explain. “It’s my brother. I…have to go.”

“Of course you do,” she says with a half-hearted smile.

“I’ll see you soon,” Sam promises. On impulse he reaches out, hands catching her face between them, leaning back in. He shys away from her mouth at the last moment, not quite brave enough to kiss her lips, kiss pressed against her cheek, holding for a moment before he lets her go.

He doesn’t wait to see her reaction, too self-conscious and embarrassed, his cheeks flushing hot as he pushes to his feet. He’s hurrying down the dock when her voice calls after him.

“You’d better.”

He smiles, glancing down at his shoes, and then starts to jog as he hits the sand.

*

He arrives back at the Blue Moon, slightly out of breath, brows drawn together in a frown, eyes searching for his brother.

“Sammy!” Dean’s there, outside the gate, hurrying up to Sam through the soft covering of hydrangea petals, scattering them around the soles of his tennis shoes.

“Is everything okay?” Sam asks.

“What? Yeah,” Dean replies, offhand, like he’d barely heard what Sam had said. 

Sam just looks at him. “Then what’s going on?”

His brother has that look like the cat that ate _all_ the canaries, like he’s got the best secret ever, and for a moment Sam hopes this isn’t going to be another one of Dean’s sex stories. 

“There’s an honest to god fucking malt shop in town,” Dean says, gruff, like he can’t believe it. “Like right out of the fucking nineteen-fifties, chrome and all.” And then his face blooms in a slow smile. “I figure we gotta go check it out.”

Sam shakes his head in disbelief. “What?”

“Dude, come on. Archie, Betty and Veronica, sucking a milkshake out of the same glass with three straws. Fred and Daphne dancing by the jukebox while Shaggy and Scooby eat sandwiches taller than they are. It’s a piece of history.”

“ _Cartoon_ history,” Sam counters, still confused by his brother’s excitement.

“Only history that matters,” Dean agrees with a grin.

Sam wants to scoff, make a snide remark, but it’s hard when Dean’s face lights up like this; like he’s the sun itself, warming Sam to his bones.

“Come on, Sammy,” Dean adds, still smiling as he dips his head to one side.

Dean _is_ beautiful, he realizes, conversation with Dawn driven home like a stake through his heart, momentarily skewered, breath pinned in his lungs. Dean’s so beautiful and it hurts, perfect angles of his face, lazy slant of his green eyes, and all Sam can manage is a nod.

*

Their Dad has the Impala, but it’s not a far walk, a few blocks over and down, on the street this town calls the main strip.

It _is_ a piece of history, all chrome and glass and black-and-white checkered tile, red leather booth seats and bar stools, jukebox lit from inside, speakers blaring out Buddy Holly. The smell of fried grease fills the air with the delicious mingled scents of beef and potatoes, waitresses in 1950s uniforms, short pink dresses with white aprons tied over top, and if it weren’t for the several tables and a few booths filled with customers in modern clothes, Sam could almost believe he’d stepped backward through time.

“I told you,” Dean says with obvious glee, slapping Sam on the shoulder way too hard. 

The waitress that seats them has short, dark hair that ends just below her jawline, little paper hat pinned at the top of her perfectly coiffed, loose 1950s style curls, and Sam suspects she’s wearing a wig, but it’s hard to tell. She’s sunny, bright and upbeat with red-painted lips as she takes their order.

They both order strawberry malts that arrive in tall, old-fashioned glasses, icy pink topped with frothy whipped cream, cherries perched perfectly on top. They sip from thick red and white striped straws, Dean’s eyelids fluttering with pleasure as he swallows, humming.

Sam’s never had a milkshake this amazing, he gets it, but Dean’s practically obscene, the way he sucks the whipped cream off the cherry, stem dangling between his thumb and forefinger before he sucks the cherry into his mouth, too, chewing vigorously and swallowing.

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean says, voice low and gritty, empty cherry stem still caught between his fingers, “check this out.” He opens his mouth, tongue swiping out to catch the stem and pulling it inside. Lips closed, eyes focused, his jaw moves back and forth a few times, and less than a minute later, he pulls the cherry stem back out, its length knotted together in a pretzel shape. An extremely _tight_ pretzel shape.

“Huh?” Dean asks with a knowing grin, holding the stem closer to Sam for inspection. “That’s how you keep the ladies happy.”

There are things Sam doesn’t need to know about his brother. Probably should never know about his brother. Things he _definitely_ shouldn’t know about his brother so they don’t keep him awake at night with images he _absolutely_ should never be having about his brother—and this is one of them. Every single image it brings to mind is filthy, and Dean is just so incredibly, indescribably _proud_.

“Try it,” Dean says, putting the cherry stem down against the white napkin laid alongside his milkshake. The red edges begin to bleed into the paper, staining the pristine white with faint pink.

“What? No,” Sam says automatically, eyeing the cherry in his shake dubiously. It’s sunk down on its mountain of whipped cream, pulled a third of the way into the glass, and he isn’t even sure he could fish the stem out, the way it’s tilted into the shake.

“Come on. I’ll teach you,” Dean says, and then pauses. “I mean, it takes a certain amount of talent. Not everyone can do it.” Dean lifts a lazy shoulder. “But you _are_ my little brother, so I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt.”

It’s all there in that moment, challenge thrown, and what? Dean doesn’t think he could? Ire rises inside Sam rebellious and hot. He flexes his fingers, feeling clumsy for a moment before he steadies, reaches carefully into the glass, pulling the cherry out by its body, whipped cream clinging to the tips of his thumb and forefinger.

“Take it by the stem,” Dean instructs.

Conscious of the whipped cream on his fingertips, Sam holds up the cherry, moving it around between his fingers until he’s got the stem between his fingers.

Dean leans closer across the table, eyes intent. “When you eat it, you have to do it slow…like it’s the best thing you’ve ever tasted and you have to take your time enjoying it.”

Sam tilts his head back, parts his lips and lowers the cherry into his mouth, letting his tongue flicker up to taste it.

“And don’t bite it,” Dean tells him, voice low and almost too private. “Close your lips around it and suck it into your mouth, right off the stem.”

Sam closes his lips around the top of the cherry, sucking experimentally, surprised by how easily it gives way, popping into his mouth.

“Yeah,” Dean almost purrs, “like that.”

Sugary sweet coarse texture, and Sam nearly chokes on it at the sound of approval in Dean’s voice. It’s beyond sexy; there’s something almost predatory layered underneath Dean’s proud tone, and Sam wants to back away from the moment, tell Dean to stop acting like they’re in a porno, but that’s pretty much how Dean lives his life so Sam isn’t really surprised. And Dean seems to think he’s doing it right.

Sam chews the cherry slowly and swallows, light taste of whipped cream and syrupy sweetness lingering afterward.

“This is the tricky part,” Dean confers, voice low and breathy. 

“I can do it.” Sam’s tone is more certain than he feels, unwavering as he meets his brother’s gaze. Dean’s eyes are incredibly green and so intent, his lips stained pink from cherry juice.

“Put the stem in your mouth,” Dean tells him. “Let it rest sideways across your tongue.”

Sam does, not quite closing his mouth afterward, waiting for further instructions.

“Close your lips,” Dean tells him, and Sam complies. “Good. Now swish it back and forth a little inside your teeth, get it wet.”

Sam moves the texture of the stem around inside his mouth, conscious of how closely Dean is watching him.

“Now, make sure it’s laid sideways across your tongue. Near the tip, but not too close.”

Dean walks him through the next step, and Sam catches the loop between closed teeth, holding tight. Dean tells him what to do next, and his tongue feels inadequate to the task, taking several tries before he can even find the thicker end of the stem. He nods when he finally does, and the smile Dean gives him is almost criminal, it’s so sinful. 

Top of the loop caught between his teeth, Sam tries to push the thicker end through, tongue slippery and uncoordinated, and it would be a lot easier if Dean’s eyes weren’t so fixated on him, his brother leaning across the table on his elbows, focused on Sam like he’s the only thing that exists.

“You have to use the tip,” Dean tells him, his voice pitched low in that same purr. “Half-circle around,” Dean says, lips parting, his tongue flickering out, and Sam feels a shock roll through him at the sight, soft pink on pink, Dean’s tongue glistening as he traces a half-circle against his lips, tip gliding along the plush, lower lip, hugging the outside curve, then slowly trailing halfway across his upper lip, letting it linger there for a moment, his eyes still locked on Sam’s.

“And then…” Dean’s voice sounds like gritty heat, “You have to push it down, through the loop.” Dean shows him again, confident, talented motion of his tongue as if in slow motion, and Sam is caught like a fly in a web, captured by his brother, caught so intensely in the moment that he forgets what he’s supposed to be doing.

“Sammy?” Dean asks softly, after a moment. “You still with me?”

Sam blinks, snapping back into the moment, feels his heart leap in his chest and then begin to pound, sudden heat rushing to his cheeks. He’d been so lost in what Dean was doing; now he feels the intensity of his brother’s gaze again, the quiet, burning heat of those eyes, the expectation, and he feels silly, awkward, like he’s been caught doing something he had no business doing.

Sam tries, tongue catching beneath the thicker end of the stem, letting the slight weight of it rest there a moment before he lifts to circle it around. He can’t quite find the loop though, tongue not quite nimble enough to push it downward, and the ridge of the stem slips away. Frustration and something more gathering in him, he sighs out through his nose, starts to reach up and yank out the stem so he can telll Dean how stupid this is.

“Stop.” Dean’s voice is a low, sharp command and Sam freezes with his hand halfway to his mouth before he can think.

Eyes bright green and holding Sam’s, Dean shifts just a fraction on his elbows and then quietly, so quietly Sam can hardly hear him, Dean says, “Close your eyes, Sammy.”

Sam’s heart seems to shiver inside his chest, and then Sam obeys; lets his eyelids flutter closed, cherry stem caught between his teeth, poised on the end of his tongue. Everything in the malt shop seems closer; smell of french fries and the low murmur of conversation, Elvis’ voice rising from the jukebox, crooning sweetness that fills the spaces between words around him.

“Relax.” Dean’s voice is a low, breathy, sinuous sound, cancelling out everything else, mesmerizing as it curls around Sam’s mind.

Sam takes a deep breath and exhales, hand falling to rest against the table again.

“Now try it again,” Dean says, voice low, rough. “Slow and sweet. Like you’re kissing someone you’ve waited forever to kiss.”

Sam tries to imagine it, but his experience is limited, so little for him to draw in for inspiration. He thinks of kissing Amy, his first kiss, the way it had been sweet, shockingly sweet and warm, the way she’d shivered slightly and his heart had raced in his chest. It had been wonderful, breathtaking and new and somehow fragile, but they’d never opened their mouths, the kiss not quite chaste but not passionate either.

He tries to imagine kissing Dawn, the way he almost had earlier, what it would be like. Eyes fluttering closed, lips parting, tongues sliding together and touching, slowly circling. He can almost see her, feel her, his tongue gliding inside his mouth, stem caught on the tip. And then he thinks of his brother; the way Dean was staring at him, must be staring at him right now, watching his mouth move, green eyes bright and sharp and intense, teaching his little brother something that in and of itself isn’t dirty, but somehow feels like the naughtiest thing Sam has ever done, even more than touching himself. The image ingrains itself in his mind, blurring and merging, and then he’s imagining kissing Dean instead, the way his brother’s wicked, talented tongue would feel…

In his pants, his cock twitches, rising half-hard within the confines of his jeans. He sucks in a sharp breath, shock jolting through him, and shoves downward with the tip of his tongue, plunging the tip into the loop. He feels the edge of the stem catch there, barely clinging, and then his eyes snap open and he yanks it from his mouth as if it were on fire.

“Not bad, little brother,” Dean approves, eyeing Sam’s work.

Sam looks down at the loose pretzel shape of the cherry stem, eyes wide, cheeks still burning, image of kissing Dean filling his mind, and then he drops it on the table, legs propelling him up from his seat. The tops of his legs hit the edge of the table, pushing him back down, and he shoves, scooting from the booth. 

The sounds and sights of the diner rush to fill the silent void he’d been in, hitting him like sensory overload. Waitresses in crisp, pink and white uniforms move through the tables, bearing trays loaded with burgers and fries, shakes and pie as they weave between people laughing and talking, din of food being prepared in the kitchen and the clink of utensils against trays, Mack the Knife playing on the jukebox.

He takes a deep, shaky breath, trying to steady himself.

“Sammy? What’s wrong?” Dean’s voice sends guilt flooding through him, and he can’t even look at his brother, sick and stricken as he shakes his head.

“Bathroom.” He manages to push out the word before he flees, legs carrying him quickly to the back of the restaurant. His shoulder hits the bright red door, flinging it open so hard it bangs against the wall, sound eching hollowly before he’s through it, hands scrambling to turn on the sink. The door falls shut as he cups his hands and lowers his face, pushing cold water against the heat of his cheeks, again and again until they finally cool. He puts his hands on either side of the cool porcelain sink, gripping the edges and lifts his face to look at himself in the mirror.

Water drips down his features, droplets clinging to skin, his eyes wide hazel, a few strands of hair clinging wet against his forehead as he stares at himself. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he demands of his reflection, voice as unsteady as he feels.

He lets go of the sink with one hand, reaches down and presses the heel of his hand against his cock, trying to will away the semi-hardness there. It twitches again, responding to his touch, and he snatches his hand from it, gripping the sink again as he breathes in and out, heavy and hard.

He tries to think it through, turning it over in his mind, brain tangled with confusion. He’d been trying to imagine kissing Dawn, but then Dean…

And was it so strange, really? It had been Dean teaching him how to knot a cherry stem, Dean’s face and voice in front of him as he’d tried. It had been a sensual, almost intimate act, and even though neither of them had intended it to, it had gotten a little charged. It hadn’t been normal to imagine kissing his brother, but it made a certain kind of sense.

Sam calms a bit, breathing beginning to even out, his dick beginning to soften. Something at the back of his mind tugs at him, something that tries to throw doubt against his current train of thought, and he shoves it forcefully away. It’s okay. He’s okay. He’s a teenager, full of hormones, and his brain’s bound to get confused and show him weird things sometimes. It doesn’t matter what his mind showed him. It’s not like he actually _wants_ to kiss his brother, right?

He stares at his face in the mirror, water rolling slowly down his cheeks, dripping from the end of his nose.

Right, he thinks, looking away from his reflection. Of course he doesn’t.

He moves to the paper towel dispenser, rubbing his face dry against the scratchy paper. His erection is completely gone now, and he’s all right. Already beginning to put it behind him as he reaches for the handle on the door.

*

The look Dean gives him is skeptical as he approaches the table. “You sure you’re okay?”

Sam nods, wishing people would stop asking him that—wishing he knew the answer.

“I paid the bill,” Dean says, still eyeing him. “You wanna finish your shake?”

Sam’s glass is still two-thirds full, whipped cream a melted layer against the bright pink, Dean’s glass sucked completely clean. Sam shakes his head, unwilling to get back in the booth.

Dean shrugs and then moves, sliding out of the booth. He tosses a few single bills on the table for a tip, and then he turns to Sam with a smile.

“Let’s go swimming,” Dean says.


	3. Chapter 3

Sam isn’t convinced swimming is the best idea after…well, whatever that had been in the diner. He drags his feet on the way back to the motel, Dean going on about something Sam’s barely listening to. His mind strays back to this morning, to the photocopied news articles, and he suddenly tunes back into the conversation.

“Hey Dean,” he says, cutting his brother off in mid-sentence. “What are we doing here?”

“Going swimming,” Dean replies, like Sam might be stupid.

“No. I mean _here_. Shell Beach. What’s the case?”

Dean looks away from Sam, and Sam sidesteps to let an older woman in a tropical print top pass between them.

Dean’s rubbing at the side of his neck as they step closer together again, walking down the side street toward the motel. “It’s not important,” Dean replies, lifting one shoulder.

“Dean,” Sam says, his voice a warning.

Dean sighs. “It’s really not. Not so far, anyway.” Dean hesitates a moment more, and then he says, “Dad seems to think some of the stuff that happened here ten years ago might be related to Mom’s death. I don’t even know how, exactly. I’ve just been asking people about some murders ten years ago. They don’t seem anything like Mom’s.”

“Oh,” Sam says and looks back down at the sidewalk. All Sam knows about his mother dying is that there was a fire, and she was killed by some kind of creature. He doesn’t know the details, Dean and his Dad always trying to shelter him from knowing more. Sometimes Sam gets curious, thinks about trying to look up newspaper articles or reports about what happened, but some part of him really doesn’t want to know. It’s bad enough knowing real monsters exist, worse that they have to fight them. He doesn’t need to know the intimate, grisly details of what one did to his mother.

“You feeling left out?” Dean asks, looking sideways at him.

“No,” Sam replies, shrugging. “I’m good.” That’s true, as far as the case goes, anyway.

Dean keeps looking at him for a moment as if he wants to say something else, and then he claps Sam on the shoulder, saying, “Come on, let’s go get changed.”

*

Palm trees rise from the farthest edges of the pool, curving inward and casting shadows at its edges, fronds waving interlaced green against the bright blue sky above. Sam feels practically naked underneath them, too much skin exposed to the wet, hot air, feeling it cling to him unpleasantly. Too much skin and way too pale, although his coloring has always been slightly darker than Dean’s, more like his Dad’s skin, where Dean had gotten their mother’s pale complexion.

Dean, on the other hand, seems completely unselfconscious, confidence written into the lines of his posture, skin smooth and freckled, tan and perfect. He’s naked except for his swim trunks and the amulet around his neck, tiny bit of gold gathered at the hollow of his throat. His shoulders broad and chest bare, his upper body is comprised of finely sculpted musculature, pecs precisely carved, stomach muscles forming a vague six-pack just barely visible beneath the skin but definitely there, light trail of hair beginning just beneath his belly button, disappearing at the edge of his swim shorts, dark blue with white stripes and hanging dangerously low on his hips, pale line of untanned skin revealed just above their edge. The lines of his inner hips are sharply defined, trailing downward towards the vee between his legs, the bottom half-hidden by his shorts, and Sam’s eyes linger there for a moment.

Dean stretches, muscles rippling beneath golden skin, and Sam’s eyes snap back to his brother’s face, movement startling Sam from his contemplation. His brother’s smile is slow and indolent as his eyes travel the length of Sam’s body, and for a moment Sam is overwhelmed by the urge to cross his arms and cover himself.

“Damn, Sammy,” Dean says with appreciation. “You really filled out this year.”

For a moment, Sam wonders if Dean is messing with him—he feels way too skinny to be as tall as he is—but his shoulders have broadened, and his chest _is_ wider, sleek layer of muscle filling in the places where he used to be wiry, and Dean doesn’t _seem_ to be making fun of him. He accepts the compliment on a trial basis, slightest bit of confidence curling like pride in his chest.

The sun slants across the pool area, day sliding toward late afternoon, and Sam moves to the pool, dips one foot into the water. It’s cold, which seems weird given the heat of the summer. Maybe they did something to keep it that cold, a cooling system to make it feel refreshing instead of like bathwater. 

Sam takes a step back from the edge, face pulling into a grimace. “It’s cold.”

“So?” Dean asks, like Sam’s crazy for even thinking about it. Dean pauses for a beat, and then says, “Do you wanna have fun or not?”

Sam turns to Dean, expression on his face like he’s debating his answer, giving Dean a challenging smile before he replies, “Not.”

Dean looks at him for a moment, and Sam can see what he means to do before he does it, but Sam doesn’t have time to move.

Dean grins at him and then ducks low, running forward, arms wrapping around Sam’s waist, momentum carrying both of them over the edge of the pool. They fly for a moment, hurtling through the open air, and Sam’s mouth is still open in surprise as they hit the water, taste of chlorine rushing over his tongue. The air is gone, the world nothing but bubbles that swirl, silver against blue around them as they sink. The cold is astonishing and complete, but Dean’s arms are still wrapped around him, cheek turning into the curve of Sam’s neck, mouth brushing the line of Sam’s jaw, and Sam can feel the shape of his brother’s laughter against his skin, can feel the length of his brother’s body pressed against his, so much bare skin to bare skin.

He’s shocked by the sensations, nerve endings shivering, too surprised and lost in the feel of Dean so close to be angry—and then Dean’s pulling away, hand grasping Sam’s and drawing him to the surface.

Sam sputters as the air greets him, wiping water from his eyes.

Dean’s hair is sticking up in erratic spikes, water streaming over the angles of his face, green eyes alight with amusement, and that same stupid grin plastered across his face. He’s gorgeous and completely smug, and Sam feels like he’s still under the water, heart beating fast, lungs straining to breathe.

“How about now?” Dean asks, and Sam splashes water at his face.

Dean spins his head to the side, trying to avoid it and barely succeeding, and then laughs, splashing Sam back.

Water shimmers on his brother’s skin, pooling at the hollow of his throat beneath the amulet, clinging to the plush curve of his bottom lip and glittering in his eyelashes, mischievous glint in his green eyes. Sam’s struck again by how beautiful Dean is, has a moment to think how unfair it is—and then Dean splashes him dead in the face, sending water up his nose and his thoughts scattering. Sam sputters and laughs, pushing up through the water and reaching for his brother’s shoulders, meaning to dunk him.

His hands slip on Dean’s wet skin and he falls, face crashing into Dean’s cheek, skidding across his brother’s, their mouths so close for an instant, and Dean catches Sam, hands grabbing Sam under the arms. For a moment, his brother just holds him, chests pressed together and breathing hard, closer to each other than Sam can ever remember being, and Sam draws back, strange feeling rushing through him, like adrenaline and trepidation all at once as he meets his brother’s eyes, faces a scant inch apart.

And then Dean shoves Sam away from him, hands still grasping Sam as he pushes off the balls of his feet and dunks Sam beneath the surface. Dean’s laughing as Sam surfaces, wiping water from his eyes, and Sam lunges for him, meaning to pay Dean back in kind.

“Boys,” the Dad calls, his deep voice filling the hollow of the pool area, and both of them stop, turn their heads, playfulness forgotten.

Their Dad stands at the outside entrance to the pool, fully dressed and keys in hand, recently returned from wherever he’d gone off too.

In a lower tone of voice, he says, “Come on, Dean. I need you to help me do some things.”

“Yessir,” Dean replies, and Sam feels his high spirits fall. They’d actually been having fun.

Their Dad turns, presumably walking back to the parking lot, and Dean’s already moving to the pool ladder, having to swim to cross the last few feet.

Sam takes it all in in a split second, and then he’s right behind his brother, revenge carried out as he pushes Dean underneath the water just before he grabs the ladder.

“You little sneak,” Dean hisses as he surfaces, amusement stealing the sting from the insult. Dean wipes water from his eyes, index finger pointing at Sam as he promises, “I owe you.”

Sam just smiles, sending a splash of water Dean’s way.

Dean gives him a last look and then turns, climbing out of the pool. Water falls from him in a flood, swim trunks clinging to his body like second skin, their edge hanging precariously low, threatening to fall off his hips all together. Sam can tell his brother’s legs are about as well-muscled as his upper body, his ass round and pert, and—

Dean spins around, body arranging itself in a goofy pose as he pauses and then flexes his muscles, showing them off and being a complete and utter dork. Normally Sam would roll his eyes at his brother’s display, but Dean’s body is wet and glistening in the sun, and even as goofy as he’s being, he looks—

Dean stands up straight, eyeing Sam’s lack of reaction, obviously disappointed that he didn’t get a laugh out of Sam. He seems to think for a split second, and then he grins at Sam. 

“Perv,” Dean admonishes with no conviction, almost playful. And then he winks at Sam before he spins around, strutting off like he knows Sam’s watching him.

Sam _is_ watching him, for a moment almost speechless at his brother’s behavior. He’s messed with Sam like that plenty of times, but never when…

When what?

Sam blinks away water rolling down into his eyes, not turning to look when Dean veers out of his line of vision, heading upstairs to get changed and join their Dad.

He’s disappointed, that’s all. He and Dean had been having fun and of course, hunting had to come bust in and ruin it all. 

He swims a few laps back and forth across the pool to take his mind off things, and a few minutes later Dean walks out to the parking lot, fully dressed, hair still wet as he throws a hand in the air, waving goodbye.

“Don’t forget to eat dinner,” Dean calls out before he vanishes beyond the gate.

Sam treads water in the deep end of the pool, feeling deflated. He’s been sad when Dean’s had to leave him behind before, but there’s an edge to this feeling, something greedy flickering at the edge and licking at his insides.

He pushes off the wall, trying to lose the feeling behind him in the water as he swims several more laps. 

He’s just disappointed.

* 

The sun sets, leaving Sam filled with the disquiet of silence. Most times he likes the silence, finds solace in the night song of crickets, the arrangement of the stars against the sky.

He walks down the shaded path to the beach, lost in complete shadow for a few moments, palms whispering against each other in the night air. If he were another person, he might be unnerved by it all, but it doesn’t bother him in the slightest, ears tuned in to the sounds around him, waiting for the telltale sound of anything moving. He isn’t worried about monsters here, anyway; the case his Dad and Dean are working is old.

He emerges from the path, shoes touching the expanse of unbroken white sand, grains brilliant beneath the moon, pale and two-thirds full. 

He wonders if she’ll be there; it’s been dark for a long time now. Her family is busy, but they’re normal, and they probably expect her home by a certain time. It’s all right if she isn’t there, he tells himself. Walking the beach is better than sitting in the hotel room alone anyway.

In the distance, he can see the colored lights of the carnival, silhouetted tent tops against the night sky. The breeze coming in off the ocean is gentle, barely ruffling his hair, and as he walks further down the beach, it carries the sound of carnival music to him in bits and pieces. It seems like it should be too far away for him to hear, but it is incredibly quiet here, and the ocean probably does something strange to the acoustics.

He doesn’t see her until he’s almost on top of her, her back resting against the bleached wooden dock post. She’s wearing cut-off jean shorts that end a little short of modesty, and a plain, light blue tank top, her feet bare, toes dug beneath the sand. He comes to a stop before her, and she scoots over a little in the sand as if in invitation.

“It’s late,” Sam says as he sits down beside her, their shoulders not quite touching.

“I know,” she replies, chin lifting, face rising toward the moon. White light races across her features, hollows left in shadow.

“What are you doing out here?” he asks.

“Same thing you are,” she says, face still tilted up at the sky. And then she lowers her chin, looking down at the place where her knees are pulled up, nearly touching her chest. “I spend a lot of time out here.”

He looks at her, wondering. “Doesn’t your family...?”

“Worry?” she finishes for him, and he can hear the bitter smile in her voice. She turns to look at him for the first time. “They’re not home. Mom’s out of town on a business trip and my sister sleeps days, works nights. They barely know I exist.” She pauses, considering him for a moment. “What about you? Doesn’t your family worry?”

Right. Because a normal, responsible family would be home with their kids, everyone asleep by now. 

“I snuck out,” he says before he realizes he’s going to speak. “They had a few beers and they’re both asleep.” The lie comes out so smoothly that he’s surprised for a moment, and then guilt rolls in, drowning his surprise in disappointment that he has to lie to her at all.

She doesn’t comment, swiveling her head to look back out at the water. “Do you like the ocean?” she asks, instead.

Caught off guard by the question, he thinks for a moment before replying, “It’s all right.” And then, more self-conscious, “I guess I’ve never thought about it much.

“I love it,” she says, smile creasing her face. “Especially at night. It’s so romantic.”

Sam’s brows draw together, wondering if she’s trying to throw him a hint, but he can’t read anything in the set of her face, body still relaxed, resting against the dock post.

“It always makes me think of lovers under the moon. There’s a song,” she says, and then stops. 

“A song?” Sam prompts, when she seems reluctant to continue.

“Okay,” she says, her expression oddly embarrassed. “Don’t make fun of me, though.”

Sam nods in promise, confused.

She sits up, straightening her back and crossing her legs against the sand, chin pointed upward. After a moment, she begins to sing, startling Sam as her voice rises in the warm night air.

_“Down by the sea,  
_ _When the waves still,  
_ _And the stars rise,  
_ _That’s where I’ll be,  
_ _Be with my love,  
_ _Forever more.”_

Her voice is high, lovely and haunting, something sad in the way she sings. 

_“In the arms of the sea,  
_ _The taste dark and brine,  
_ _Sweet as honeyed wine,  
_ _That’s where we’ll be  
_ _Me and my love,  
_ _Forever more.”_

There’s beauty in the song, but something lonely, too, something that reaches into Sam’s heart, tugging at him.

_“Down in the sea  
_ _When the moon cracks,  
_ _When the sky falls,  
_ _That’s where we’ll be,_  
_Troubled by daylight,  
_ _no more.”_

The last note seems to hang in the air, holding for a moment before it fades. A chill runs the length of Sam’s spine, sending shivers through his limbs, awe for the beauty of her voice mingling with a sense of unease.

She doesn’t look at him, eyes downcast, silence stretching out between them.

“That’s… Your voice is beautiful,” he tells her, impressed. He hesitates, then says. “But that song...”

“Is kind of old and morbid?” she asks, smile playing about her lips.

“Yeah,” he agrees with a short laugh. 

She nods. “My uncle’s a fisherman. He used to take me out on his boat sometimes when I was little, and he always sang these old, weird sailor songs.” She chuckles, tucking a strand of long chestnut hair behind one ear. “I always liked that one though,” she adds, her voice soft and tinged with embarrassment.

Not wanting her to be embarrassed, he searches for something to fill the silence. “Like the old fairy tales. Dark and grim.” The train of thought takes hold, and he goes on, realizing, “It’s probably why we still remember them. People tend to forget the happy stories.” He pauses for a moment, considering, and then draws his knees up, wrapping his arms around them. “I like it.”

She looks at him sidelong, smiling again. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“No,” he protests. “I do.” He’d been thrown by the unexpectedness of it, but the words and the way she’d sung them, so wistful and filled with longing, had touched something inside him—something that feels old, lonely. Something that feels the same longing she’d sung with. He can’t quite pin it down or define it, part of him unwilling to dig any deeper, and so he changes the subject.

“Your voice is amazing,” he says. “Did you take lessons?”

Her hair shivers around her face as she shakes her head. “Just natural talent.”

“So what kind of music do you like? Besides old fisherman songs?” Sam asks, smiling.

They talk for a long time about music and bands, moon rising higher in the sky, and when she takes his hand in hers, it feels comfortable, normal, nothing like his experience earlier today. After a while, she leans in, warmth of her lips pressing against his, chaste and sweet. His cheeks burn and his heart races, but it’s for all the right reasons, and it feels _good_. He takes her by the shoulders, pulling her in, parting his lips just a fraction. Her mouth opens in answer to him, tongue reaching out to taste his, and he circles her tongue with his, nice and slow. The way Dean had taught him, he thinks, thought throwing him off for a moment. His tongue stumbles and Dawn draws back, looking at him with her big green eyes.

“Is this okay?” she asks. “If you don’t want to…”

“I do,” Sam assures her, and pulls her in again, lips meeting hers. He focuses on her, the scent of her, the way it feels to kiss her, and shoves Dean from his mind completely.

This is what it’s supposed to be like, he thinks.

*

Later, they lie spread out on the sand side by side, the stars a twinkling tapestry strung out above them. Dawn’s voice is sweet as she speaks beside him, and Sam reaches out and takes her hand, holding it tight within his own. 

“Sam, I really like you,” she says after a moment. “But, your brother…”

“What about him?” Sam asks, frowning.

“He’s kind of in the way, don’t you think?”

Sam tries to puzzle out her words as she falls silent, and from the night sky, something falls, landing with a wet plunk on Sam’s chest. He cranes his neck, looking down, and sees a bright red cherry resting against the thin material of his t-shirt, stem sticking straight up in the breeze.

“Why?” he asks, turning his neck to look at Dawn.

Her green eyes are wide, disinterested. “Don’t ask me. I’m just a construct,” she tells him.

Another cherry falls with wet plop, striking the sand beside him, and then another, and another. Cherries begin to rain from the sky, Sam’s heart starting to pick up speed, thundering inside his chest, and this is wrong, all wrong, he—

He’s lying on his back beneath the night sky, something more solid than sand beneath him, Dawn’s hand still clasped in his, but he’s somewhere else now. Somewhere silent except for the calls of night birds, the night clear, free of raining cherries or the sound of waves.

“I’m glad we did this,” Dawn says, and Sam turns his head to look at her again.

It’s Dean, lying back against the windshield of the Impala, his brother lounging like a lazy lion, smile just as predatory, green eyes luminous in the moonlight. His brother is older, crinkles at the corners of his eyes deeper than Sam ever remembers seeing them, jaw sharper, leaner, but still speckled with stubble, his hair short as always, but there are lighter strands caught in the sandy brown color, glinting silver in the light. Sam understands all at once that he’s older, too, caught somewhere in the future with his brother, the two of them lying side by side on the hood of the Impala, stargazing together.

“I’m glad I forgave you for wanting this,” Dean tells him. 

“Wanting this?” Sam echoes, breathless.

And then Dean moves, rolling over, one thigh thrown across Sam’s waist as he sits up, straddling Sam. 

“Isn’t this what you always wanted, Sam?” Dean’s voice is low, gritty heat, his head dipping down, lips meeting Sam’s. Smooth, wet heat, his lips parting for his brother, Dean’s tongue sweeping inside his mouth with a wicked twist. Some part of Sam’s mind shrinks from the moment in horror, but another, larger part of him feels the rightness in it. This isn’t the first time they’ve done this, he realizes, and he lets go, mouth melting against Dean’s, molten heat that flows to the core of him, leaving fire in its wake, and he reaches up, catches Dean’s face between his hands, pushing up into the kiss without restraint, everything in him crying out for more, for Dean against him, inside him—

Sam wakes, gasping for breath, sitting bolt upright in bed, fingers clenched in the covers, cock rock hard between his thighs.

“Bad dream?” Dean asks from his side of the room, and Sam nearly jumps out of his skin at the sound.

“No,” Sam answers, words falling from his lips without thought. “Yes,” he corrects, true horror finally hitting him.

“I’ve got something that’ll make it all better,” Dean tells him, voice pitched low, and suddenly Sam wonders if he’s awake at all.

“What?” Sam asks, heart seeming to freeze in place.

“How about you and me…” 

Dean pauses and Sam’s mind fills in the span of those few seconds with every kind of perverted response imaginable.

“...going to the carnival, Friday night,” Dean finishes, sounding pleased with himself.

Sam’s breath escapes him with a relieved sigh, reality asserting itself on him again. “Yeah,” he responds, word strained as it leaves him. “That sounds great.”

“Good,” Dean says, sounding happy. “Now go back to sleep, you big dork.” Dean rolls over in his bed, and in the half-light, Sam can see the broad, bare skin of his brother’s shoulders turned toward him above the bed covers.

He falls back against the bed, one hand winding up into his hair, his heart still hammering dull thunder in his chest, cock still hard between his thighs. 

What the fuck is wrong with him? he wonders. How could he have possibly dreamed something like that—and why did it make him hard as a rock? His cock is throbbing inside his pajama pants, sensitive head pressing against the seam, slight pressure like pure pleasure.

He closes his eyes and tries to calm himself, heels of his hands pressed against his eyelids.

Dreams are just your brain vomiting out the events of the day, he thinks, desperate to reassure himself. His brain had gotten confused in the diner earlier, too; it’s no wonder it’d be even worse in his sleep. It’s okay. It’s not a big deal. It’s not like he actually wants to…do any of those things.

Maybe the real problem is that he hasn’t jerked off in days, frustration pent up inside him. Between kissing Dawn earlier and the thing with the cherry stem, it’s no wonder his body is reacting like this. He’s sixteen; everything makes him horny. He knows it’s natural because he’d researched it when he’d started jerking off, years ago. Maybe he should just go take the edge off.

The bathroom isn’t far away, but he can’t take a shower at this hour, and he’ll have to be quiet and quick, or else Dean might figure out what he’s doing.

He throws the covers back, feet touching the motel carpet and carrying him across it to the bathroom. The light inside is harsh, too bright and sharp, fluorescent white filling all his senses.

His eyes adjust after a moment, and he flips the lid on the toilet seat down, settling it into place quietly. He sits down on it, hitching his pajama bottoms down just far enough to grab hold of his cock, length still hard and hot, precome glistening at the tip.

He’s so hard, so filled with need, it probably won’t take much to get himself off, just a few strokes. He doesn’t even bother to slick his palm, grabbing himself around the base and tugging upward to the head, rough friction of bare skin against bare skin, and he squeezes underneath the crown, yanking back down the length. It’s almost painful without any lubrication, and it just makes him even harder, balls a hot, heavy weight against his body, other hand reaching out to grab the edge of the counter, gripping it so hard he feels like he might shatter it.

He bites at his lower lip, twisting his wrist and pulling up the length, and yes, fuck, this is exactly what he needed—

It’s Dawn he wanted to imagine, her full, glossy lips wrapped around him, but it’s Dean he sees as he comes, those green eyes riveted on his as he comes so hard his head falls back against the wall, lips forming silent curses, hand squeezing beneath the head, thumb flicking across the slit, the second wave hitting him so hard it spatters against his chest, and Jesus Christ, Jesus _fuck_ —

His whole body seizes, clenching, and then releases, pleasure surging through him, his fist slick with come as he slides it up the curve, too far gone to control the pressure, squeezing so forcefully it almost hurts, makes him come so hard spots of color bloom behind the darkness of his eyes, cries barely choked back, his whole body arching up off the toilet.

He keeps moving his hand, milking every sensation until he feels like he might pass out, cock twitching and sputtering in his hand, nothing left to give.

Finally, he slumps back against the toilet, whole body giving way, every single muscle going limp, hand sticky with come as it falls away. He lies there for a long moment, bordering on falling asleep…but he can’t sleep, he can’t risk Dean finding him like this. With an effort, he gathers himself, sitting up.

It takes longer than he wishes it would for him to clean up, and he hurries through it, hoping Dean is asleep, that he’s been asleep since before Sam came in here.

Dean…he’d seen Dean when he’d…and God, fuck…those eyes, filled with heat and sin and every single dirty thing Sam’s never done.

No. Sam bites down against his lower lip in anger this time, forcing himself to focus. His brain has been fucked up all day. There’s no reason he should start giving it credit now.

He just needs to get some sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

In the morning, he feels better. Sated, satisfied, and fuck, he must have really needed that, because he feels calmer than he has in days.

He moves to the window, and outside, the sky is gray, clouds blackening as they roll in, thunder rumbling in the distance.

Dean is still there, emerging from the bathroom, and Sam turns.

Dean’s hair is wet, tousled and wild from the shower, dressed in a white t-shirt and loose, faded blue jeans gone white in most spots from wear, knees torn out, frayed ends hanging free. He turns to Sam, skin golden and glowing, smile wide and brilliant.

“Dad’s gone for the day. You thinking what I’m thinking?” Dean asks.

Sam shifts his weight between his feet, uncomfortable and completely unsure if he’s dreaming again or not.

“Horror movie marathon and pizza,” Dean says, palms open and extended outward, presenting the idea like it’s the best thing ever.

Sam can’t help but smile, relaxing even as he pretends to consider. “Okay. But I pick the movies.”

Dean squints at him, skeptical.

“Dean, you only have one duffle bag full of horror movies—how bad can my choices be?”

Dean tilts his head back and forth as if weighing Sam’s argument. “Okay. But you make the popcorn.”

“Deal,” Sam replies with a grin. He pauses, and then adds, “We’re probably too old for the blanket fort though.”

“Totally,” Dean says, nodding, solemn for a moment before he breaks into a grin. “Like that’s gonna stop us.”

*

Sam showers and brushes his teeth, then gets dressed in the bathroom. When he comes out, he goes to the clothes he’d discarded the night before, loading them into the army green drawstring bag they use for laundry, shark’s tooth pulled from yesterday’s pants pocket. He turns it over in the palm of his hand, wondering if Dawn’s on the beach today, tucked away beneath the dock to avoid the rain.

“Come on, Sammy,” Dean calls out. “These sheets ain’t gonna hang themselves.”

Sam looks at the tooth resting against his palm one last time and then sets it down on the nightstand next to his bed.

“I’m coming,” he says, going to help Dean.

*

Two hours later, they’re both lying on Dean’s bed beneath an intricate formation of sheets and blankets tied carefully to every available nearby surface. It’s been years since they’ve done this, since they’ve both been free with no hunt to distract them, and they were both probably too old for it last time, but it feels secretive and safe somehow, the two of them on their stomachs, pressed hip to hip beneath the ceiling of sheets above them, covers stretching from them to the TV in a smooth tunnel. They’re watching the first Phantasm movie, bowl of microwave popcorn set on the bed between them, both of them propped up on their elbows. 

“Mmph,” Dean says, chewing a mouthful of popcorn. He swallows quickly, then continues, “Flying death sphere scene!”

They watch as the sphere in question burrows extensions into the man’s forehead, blood spraying in gouts through the other end.

As the man falls to the ground, Dean says, “This part, after he dies, where he pisses himself? Almost got the movie an “X” rating.”

“Really?” Sam asks, disbelieving. “All that blood but the piss is too much?”

Dean shrugs, grabbing another fistful of popcorn from the bowl. “The world is weird, Sammy. I don’t make the rules.”

Dean pauses with his popcorn halfway to his mouth, watching the action on screen. “You know, this kid is smarter than all the people in the Friday the 13th franchise put together? He gets away from the caretaker, the Tall Man, and even the ninja jawas. And collects evidence right in the middle of all of it.”

“He is weirdly smart,” Sam agrees, nodding. He’s seen this movie before but it was a long time ago.

Dean’s hand is still half full of popcorn as it falls to one side as he says, thoughtful, “He’s got this weird obsession with his brother, too, following him around everywhere, spying on his sexcapades. Who does that?”

Sam shifts uneasily on the bed, eyes fixed on the TV screen, suddenly too conscious of his hip resting against Dean’s. He can feel Dean’s eyes on him for a moment, and then his brother shrugs, stuffing more popcorn in his mouth.

It feels too quiet, silence an almost palpable thing between them, and Sam is way too self-conscious, his dream from last night pushing at the edges of his mind. And then Dean nudges Sam’s shoulder with his own, saying, “Garbage disposal scene.”

And they’re back; just two brothers having a horror movie marathon, shoveling popcorn into their mouths and critiquing the cinematography, which is actually pretty good. As long as he avoids looking directly at Dean everything is great. And if their shoulders push closer together, leaning on each other, if their hands touch, reaching for popcorn, buttery fingers brushing against each other, it doesn’t mean anything.

It’s the most fun Sam’s had in a long time.

*

They watch Phantasm 2, which is good, funnier, but not as well filmed as the first one, and then they do an Alien marathon, actually watching all four. Dean thinks the third one sucks, but Sam argues that it was ahead of its time; dark movies didn’t come into style until years later. They both enjoy the fourth one—it’s a little more tongue-in-cheek than the first three, but it’s definitely fun. By then, they’ve finished off the pizza they ordered earlier, cardboard box shoved to the floor, and it’s getting late.

Sam stretches, muscles stiff after lying in bed all day, credits to Alien Resurrection rolling on the TV screen. 

“So what’s the deal with the shark tooth?” Dean asks, poking Sam under the arm as he stretches.

Sam flinches, instinctively recoiling back into himself at the surprise of Dean’s touch, and then he relaxes a little as he realizes it’s just Dean. It takes him a moment to even catch on to what Dean’s asking—and then he remembers this morning, when he’d set the tooth down on his nightstand. He wouldn’t have expected Dean to notice, much less remember after all the movies they’d watched.

“Nothing,” Sam says, shrugging.

“Uh-huh,” Dean replies, obviously unconvinced. “Gift from your girlfriend?”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Sam protests.

Dean squints at him, smile playing about his lips. “Uh-huh. You kiss her yet?”

Sam flushes, cheeks turning hot and probably pink enough for Dean to notice. “Now who’s being weirdly obsessive about their brother?” Sam mutters.

“Fine,” Dean says with a tilt of his head. “It’s none of my business.”

Dean makes the remark sound offhand, like he could care less, but Sam knows better, can hear the note of hurt beneath his brother’s casual tone. And well, Dean had given him some pointers that worked out pretty well. He thinks, anyway.

“I kissed her,” he admits.

Dean smiles, and it’s a moment before the rest of his face follows suit. “Yeah?” he asks with a grin. “How was it?”

“Good. I think. The cherry stem thing helped,” Sam adds. 

Dean punches Sam lightly in one shoulder. “That’s my boy.”

He seems less enthusiastic about it than he normally would—normally he’d be so enthusiastic Sam would want him to shut up—but Sam thinks it’s probably because they just spent the last twelve hours straight watching movies back to back. He’s tired, too.

Dean turns over onto his side, facing Sam, one hand propping up his head, fist curled against his brother’s cheek, those green eyes seeming so much further away than the rest of him, breathing evenly beneath golden skin and a white t-shirt shirt with frayed sleeves. Dean’s other hand reaches up, catching at the edges of the amulet hanging from his neck, fingers absently toying with its weight. He lets it drop after a moment, then looks at Sam again. “You know, you could get it made into a necklace. The shark tooth, I mean.”

Sam’s eyes stray to the amulet, thinking about the Christmas when he’d given it to Dean, the way Dean never takes it off. 

“No.” Sam shakes his head. “It’s not that important.”

Dean nods, not arguing the point, and it’s so unlike him that Sam feels moved to ask _him_ the question of the week.

“Dean, are you okay?”

“Of course I am,” Dean scoffs. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know. You just seem…” Sam trails off, noticing for the first time how they’re both lying on their sides, facing each other, each of them propped up on one arm and probably closer together than they strictly need to be. Dean’s gotten even more tan since they’ve been here, skin almost dark against the white backdrop of the sheet hanging behind him, the white of the t-shirt that he’s wearing, musculature curving down from his shoulders to the point of his waist, hip rising slightly before falling away, down the length of his thigh.

“I’m fine,” Dean assures him, gruff. “You, on the other hand…”

“What?” Sam asks, defensive.

“Nothing,” Dean says, his voice a shrug. “You’re just growing up.”

There’s a moment of silence between them, the two of them looking at each other across the comfortable confines of their fort, unspoken words stitched into the sheets around them, and Sam wishes he understood, that he knew what they said.

“I’m glad we did this today,” Dean says.

“Me, too,” Sam answers.

The credits finish on screen, music ending, the sheets and thin blankets around them seeming to fall still in the silence as they look at each other, and Sam almost forgets to breathe, something in the air changing like an electrical current, a switch suddenly flipped on—

“What the hell is going on in here?” Their father’s voice is perplexed rather than angry, tinged with the slightest hint of amusement.

They both move then, sitting up and pulling down the sheet suspended above them, wrapping it up into itself against their bodies until they can see their Dad.

“Movie marathon,” Sam answers, as the VCR whirs to life, automatically rewinding the tape.

“Little old for blanket forts, aren’t you?” Dad asks.

“Never,” Dean replies, grinning.

Dad shakes his head with a wry smile. “I brought dinner. How about you get this place cleaned up?”

“Yessir,” Dean answers, and they both move to start taking things down.

*

They finish dinner, everything cleaned up and put away, beds remade and Dad back in his own room.

“One more movie,” Dean says. “Come on, Sammy. We didn’t even touch the Hellraiser series.”

Sam’s tired, but Dean’s so enthusiastic, his face lighting up like the sun. The blanket fort is gone…whatever he’d been feeling earlier is gone…but Dean’s grin is infectious and Sam can’t bring himself to say no. 

He bargains instead. “Hellraiser is a marathon run on its own. I could do the Omen, though.”

“Done,” Dean proclaims in agreement, giving in far easier than Sam expected him to.

They climb back onto Dean’s bed, in their pajamas now, hips resting against each other, shoulders almost touching. Sam feels like it’s weirder without the enclosure of the blanket fort, somehow more exposed without it, too conscious of the warmth of his brother’s body next to him.

They’re ten minutes in when Sam starts dozing off, startling awake when Dean begins to snore lightly next to him. Dean’s head is resting against Sam’s forearm, and that’s a little bit weird, except it really isn’t, because Dean’s asleep and it’s completely innocent.

Sam looks over at his bed, feeling like he should turn the movie off and go to it, and then looks back at the TV screen.

He can watch a few more minutes, he thinks. A few minutes after that, he’s sound asleep, body turning on the bed to curl towards Dean.  
  


*

When he wakes in the morning, he’s disoriented, taking a moment to figure out where he is based on the position of the motel window. Last night rushes back, and he’s still lying the wrong way on Dean’s bed, but there are blankets wrapped around him, tucked in close to keep him warm. He’s alone, that’s the next thing he realizes.

“Morning, sleeping beauty,” Dean calls out, walking past Sam’s line of vision clad in nothing but a white motel towel wrapped around his waist.

“Mrrrf,” Sam replies, and it’s half sleepiness, half surprise at seeing his brother so…almost entirely without clothes. 

Dean stops by his bed, rifling through his bag of clothes, back bending with smooth skin against the sunlight peeking in through the windows, towel hanging dangerously low around his hips. Shoulders flexing as he pulls free a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt before he moves out of Sam’s line of vision.

Dean doesn’t go back into the bathroom, sounds of him dressing loud in Sam’s ears, and Sam doesn’t turn his head, afraid of what he might see. Sam can hear the distinct sound of a zipper being pulled up, a belt being fastened, can almost see Dean pulling on his clothes, tugging everything into place with casual confidence.

And then, without warning, he’s in Sam’s space, fingers ruffling through Sam’s hair, casual and pushing strands into Sam’s face with a broad grin. 

“Duty calls,” Dean says. “I’ll be with Dad. Breakfast is on the table.”

“Okay,” Sam says, like it means anything, like he didn’t sleep in Dean’s bed last night with Dean and Dean isn’t giving him shit about it.

Dean gives him one last brilliant grin, hand pushing Sam’s face into the pillow with a gruff laugh, and then he’s gone, door slamming shut behind him. Dean doesn’t linger, but the image of him does, white teeth and green eyes, bare, tanned skin still dewy from the shower.

Sam rolls over against the mattress, face pressed so deep into the pillow he can barely breathe, can barely think about what he’s doing. He’s hard as a rock, and that’s normal, that’s just the morning, he wakes up hard a lot of mornings, it’s part of being a guy. 

What isn’t normal is the way he rocks his hips against the bed, arms rising to grip the pillow tighter around his face, grinding and rocking into the firm smoothness of the mattress, cock sliding inside his pajama bottoms, center vein riding up the seam, head catching against the waistband with delicious friction, driving down into it, crown caught between his belly and the bed, pajamas sliding against his skin like the most amazing bonus. Hips thrusting, head turning to the side, grunting into the pillow, teeth biting down hard as he pushes into the feel again, and it’s so good, so fucking amazing and he’s going to come right here in his pants, groaning and fucking into his pajamas.

Teeth threatening to tear down from the pillow, eyes rolling back in his head as every muscle in his body tightens, fire rushing through every nerve ending, curling deliciously at the base of his spine and then _exploding,_ rush filling him like adrenaline, cock spurting come against his belly, forbidden words hissed through his teeth in the shape of a name he can’t face, forgotten as his orgasm strikes him brain to spine, leaving him broken and spent, cock sputtering weakly against the waistline of his pajamas, face turning deep against feathered down, hips shuddering, dick clenching uselessly, drained dry and still convulsing.

Body arched and thrusting against the bed until the aftershocks leave him in a series of sweet, convulsive shivers, sweating into the sheets, panting against the pillow, tongue caught between his teeth.

Fuck. Fuck. What is he doing? Why did he—

Another aftershock rocks his body, rattling him teeth to toe, mouth smeared against the pillow in a heady groan, and he can’t think, can’t focus on anything beyond the incredible pleasure still rushing through him. He’s never been this turned on in his life.

Long seconds pass, racked by pleasure, slowly diminishing, and it’s never been like this before, he thinks, even as he comes down, as he begins to think again. It’s never been this amazing, never been so wholly without abandon. Fuck, he just came in his—no, _Dean’s_ — _bed,_ and cleaning the sheets isn’t going save the mattress if he doesn’t get up now. 

He reaches down, touches the head of his cock, shiver racking the length of his spine, and hisses in a breath. 

Hormones, he thinks. 

Jesus. Fuck.

He takes a deep breath, pushes himself up from the bed, stripping it with a few, quick motions, trying to save the mattress. Sheets and comforter wrapped into a careful ball left on the bed, mess carefully contained on the inside, and he can’t deal with it right now, knows the maid will come and make it right soon—there isn’t a washing machine anyway—he staggers on weak knees to the shower.

His hands are shaky as he washes himself, but he breathes deep, turns his face into the hot spray of water until he calms, soap swirling away from his skin, spiralling down the shower drain. He dries himself with the plain, white, motel towel, wrapping it around his waist even though he knows there’s no one in the room. He walks to the dresser, digging through it for clothes that he pulls on slowly and finally stands, jeans buttoned and zipped, shirt stretched tight across his shoulders.

There’s a ceramic bowl next to a colorful box of cereal sitting on the kitchenette table, breakfast set out for him by Dean, but that only draws his eye for a moment.

On the floor between their beds, Dean’s duffle bag VCR tapes lies open, showing the black, red and silver printed covers of various horror movies. Shower’s warmth worked through him, he can almost ignore Dean’s sheets balled up on the bed, remembering yesterday when they’d been hung from every surface of the room. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.

He takes a breath and walks to the window, eyes lifting to the sky.

It’s gray as it was yesterday, smudges like charcoal against the edges, but there’s no sign of rain. He should probably go down to the beach, see how Dawn’s doing. It doesn’t seem right, making out with her like that and then not talking to her for a whole day. 

Something inside him feels reluctant though, something quiet and new that he can’t quite put a name to. He forces himself towards the door, stopping halfway out before he goes back inside, walking to his nightstand.

He looks down at the shark’s tooth lying there, sharp and shiny and undeniably pretty.

_You could probably get it made into a necklace._ Dean’s face… He’d been so sincere, wanting the best for Sam, but there’d been something else there, too, hadn’t there? Something connected to this feeling inside Sam that eludes him.

He looks at the tooth for a long moment, and then he turns, walking to the door and leaving it behind.

*

He finds her by the docks, dressed in her bikini, sheer sarong knotted around her hips, slung low diagonally across her waist. The sky is slate gray above the ocean, her body a brighter bit of color against the light blue, choppy waves. 

Water gnashes at the shore in the space where they meet, crooked wooden planks angling above them.

“Hey,” Sam says, slipping his hands into his jeans pockets.

“Hey.” She smiles, and it’s like the sun peeking out from behind a cloud. She looks down at the sand, electric-blue fingernails flexing against the air. “I missed you yesterday.”

“My brother,” Sam says, words springing to his lips. “We uh, did a horror movie marathon.” He doesn’t want to tell her more. Doesn’t want to explain how they made blanket forts because that feels personal, somehow, like a secret. But that’s silly, because he’s done that with Dean before.

She’s oddly expressionless for a moment, staring out across the water.

“Not…a big deal,” she says with a little laugh, turning toward him. “I just…missed you.”

He feels it, the moment where he’s supposed to say he missed her, too, the words poised on the tip of his tongue, ready to fall, but they taste like ashes in his mouth, empty and meaningless, and so he swallows them, uncomfortable. Had he missed her? He should have missed her, he thinks, but he’d been so busy… 

His mind strays to Dean, but the widening silence brings Dawn back into sudden focus. This is all so new to him, he’s never tried having a relationship before. At least, he’s pretty sure that’s what this is. He knows it’s only been a few days, but he also knows these things tend to happen fast, especially at his age. For a moment, everything feels as awkward as the beginning of the second day, and then she leans in, lips rising to meet his, green eyes barely shielded beneath the thick cover of her dark lashes.

He hesitates, lips pressed to hers, and then instinct takes over and he catches her face between his hands, kissing her back. 

“Come on,” she says, drawing back to look at him. “There’s something I want to show you.” She takes him by the hand and smiles, rising and pulling him to his feet.

He lets her lead, her fingers linked loosely through his, and she leads them along the shore, feet scuffling against the sand past the path to the Blue Moon, further to where the wild, tall beach grasses press against the shoreline, whispering against their calves as they walk. The union of sea against sand curves away to their left and they follow, land opening up again in a narrow stretch of pale sand, encircling a tiny cove.

“I didn’t know this was here,” Sam says, surprised.

“This beach has a lot of secrets,” Dawn replies, small smile given as she glances at him. The breeze is stronger here, almost a wind, and her hair tosses wildly in it, long strands catching across her face before she smoothes them back.

They walk the circumference of the beach to a space where the sea meets a rocky shoreline, sand disappearing completely. There is no beach here, just tall jagged rock leading away from them and upward to a cliff.

“There.” Dawn lets go of his hand and points. “Do you see it?”

He doesn’t, not at first, squinting against the wind to search the rocks and then the cliff, searching for some sort of shape within them. And then he looks lower, eyes leveling where water laps against stone, and sees it.

There’s a dark space, a curvature in the bottom of one of the largest rocks, rising just slightly above the sea.

“A cave?” he asks. 

Dawn nods, smiling ear to ear like she’s impressed that he found it on his own. “We’ll have to swim a little to get to it.” She glances at his clothes then, momentarily dubious. “I guess you didn’t really come dressed to swim though.”

Getting his clothes wet is the least of Sam’s worries. “What’s out there?” he asks.

“Something very cool,” she replies, still grinning.

Sam laughs, rolls his eyes and sighs, and then takes off his shoes and socks, setting them at the edge of the grass, far from the reach of the tide.

The water is colder than he’d thought it would be, but it’s not freezing, and he lets it envelop him, wading until the sand falls away beneath his feet, the two of them swimming the short distance to the cave opening. Sam’s a pretty good swimmer, but Dawn moves through the water like a fish, her strokes smooth and graceful, almost seeming to glide through the water while Sam splashes with every stroke. 

When they reach the cave, Dawn looks at him, her brown hair plastered against her features, and grins, sucking in a deep, dramatic breath before she dives under the water. Sam takes his own deep breath and dives, water slipping over him and claiming him completely. Even gray as the sky is he can still see under the water, and he swims through the opening, surfacing on the other side.

The light is dim, cast through the cave opening above the water, but he can see well enough. Dawn’s already climbing from the water inside, bare feet settling against stone, and Sam follows her, pulling from the water with slight difficulty, the weight of his clothes tugging at him.

“Here,” Dawn says, her voice soft, walking a few steps and kneeling down.

There’s another pool in front of her, and Sam kneels down beside her, watching as she lets her fingers drift on the surface of the water.

Immediately the water begins to glow blue around the area she’d disturbed, and Sam can see the bottom of the pool only a few feet down, but more importantly, he can see what’s in the water.

Cast in shades of cerulean light, dozens of sea anemones wave gentle fronds amidst the rocks, their movement almost hypnotizing, surrounded by veins of coral and curled starfish clinging to stone. 

Her hand trails through the water again, blue light stirring in its wake, and she says, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? A whole little world hidden away in the sea, all this life depending on each other to survive, living in harmony.”

Tiny fish shoot and scurry in schools, glinting silver shapes beneath the gentle glow of light, and Sam thinks it’s one of the most beautiful things he’s ever seen. A small beautiful world, hidden and sheltered from the outside, these creatures thriving, living their lives in secret, unseen and unknown to the rest of the world.

“Sometimes,” she says, fingertips stilling within the water, blue light swirling around them. “When I think about sailing…I think about someone else there with me. Just the two of us on the boat, our own little hidden world, in charge of our own lives, depending on each other to survive.”

Her words dance inside Sam’s mind, rhythm settling into his bones, and he understands—no, he _knows_ that feeling, even if he’s never recognized it until now. A want suddenly realized, a secret given name and form inside him with abrupt fire.

“Me too,” he says, voice low, mind distracted. 

There’s a long pause and then she cants her head to the side, looking at him. “I thought you wanted to settle down, have a real home instead of traveling all the time.”

“I…” He hesitates, senses feeling dulled. “I do. But I… I don’t know.” There’s something about the idea that tugs at him, something wistful and longing and a little sad, and he _wants_ …

His mind is tangled, knotted and muddy, and he shakes his head, tries to clear it.

“I don’t know,” he says again after a moment, a small sigh escaping him.

They sit there in silence for what seems like a long time, but Sam doesn’t feel the weight of it, transfixed on the pool, hand reaching out tentatively to stroke the surface, watching light fire to life, revealing the world below.

After a while, so long that Sam isn’t sure how much time has passed, Dawn moves, rising to her feet. 

“We should probably get back.” her voice is quiet, but it still echoes inside the cave.

Sam strokes his fingers through the water one more time, watching the silver flash of fish against the gentle anemones, and then he nods, clearing his throat.

“Yeah,” he says, nodding again. “Yeah, we probably should,” he agrees, pushing to his feet.

They walk to the other side of the stone, Dawn lowering herself into the water carefully before she dives beneath the surface, and Sam casts one last look over his shoulder.

The bright blue light is fading, edges of the pool pushing in to reclaim it in relative darkness. He watches as it fades like glitter through the water, and then finally he tears his eyes away, lowering himself into the water after Dawn.

*

They walk back the way they came, hand in hand in silence, Sam carrying his shoes in his free hand.

He should belong here, along a shoreline with a pretty girl, free of anything like hunting, her hand in his, nothing on their minds but each other. He should belong here, he should fit, but no matter how he twists and turns, it doesn’t sit comfortably inside his skin, strange feeling nagging at him that he just can’t shake.

She lets go of him as they reach the main stretch of beach near the Blue Moon, saying they should search for ocean treasures for a while, and so Sam puts his shoes aside again, and they spend time along the shore, mostly quiet. The sun peeks out between the clouds every now and then, bestowing a few rays of sunshine on them here and there, and they walk along the shore, tide rolling up around their ankles, swirling sand over their feet, snatching shark’s teeth and plucking shells from the water before the ocean can reclaim them.

He gives all the treasures he’d captured to her, and when he leaves, the kiss she gives him is sweet, almost tender, and she clings to him, fingers curling in the material of his shirt.

“See you soon, Sam,” she breathes, and it sounds wistful, like the way he feels.

*

The motel room is still empty when Sam returns, and he changes out of his still-damp clothes, pulling on his pajamas even though it’s early. He considers the TV for a long moment and then looks over at the bag full of movies lying between his and Dean’s beds.

It feels somehow disloyal, but he watches Hellraiser, and then Hellraiser 2 before deciding his Dad and Dean must have gone to a bar—probably to pump the locals for information as much as to get drunk—and he falls asleep as the credits roll.

He doesn’t hear Dean come in, but when he wakes the next morning, all the evidence of Dean having been there is clear, breakfast cereal set out for him on the table alongside the bowl. Dean is gone again, but there’s a hastily scribbled note laid next to the spoon

_Some weird disappearances in this town over the years. Be careful._

And then, _Carnival tonight at 7. Eat breakfast you dork._

Sam smiles, snorting out a small laugh, and then he makes himself a bowl of cereal.

*

After breakfast, he decides to go to the town library instead of the beach, Dean’s note leaving him curious. It’s a small building with mostly glass front, one level and low to the ground like most of the houses in town, it’s interior steeped in the scent of old paper, deep, rich hues of brown wood underscored by beige carpet, and Sam finds it mostly empty, comfortable in the silence as he begins pulling up old, local newspapers on the microfiche. 

He finds articles about the murders ten years ago, but he doesn’t pay much attention to them. There are a fair number of articles about disappearances in the town over the last few decades, mostly teenagers and mostly tourists, but not enough beyond that to link them together. Most of the articles seem to conclude that the missing persons were pulled out to sea by undercurrents, or perhaps ran away. Sam can’t find any sense in the pattern either, frowning at the screen and debating whether the conclusions are right or not. Something in his gut says ‘not’ but he can’t find enough information to form a pattern fitting any monster he knows of.

It’s five o’clock, according to the hands on the clock on the wall, when he finally pulls himself from the library, walking back to the Blue Moon to get ready.

He takes a shower and spends a while picking out what to wear. He’s never been to a carnival—well, not since he was little, anyway—but he guesses it’s a pretty casual, comfortable affair. Still, he picks a nice shirt and wears his newest, darkest blue jeans, the ones with no signs of wear on them yet.

He’s ready by six, and he spends the hour antsy, nervous edge inside him. He’s used to these kinds of things falling through, and he’s surprised to find he’s actually really looking forward to this.

Dean arrives a few minutes after seven, all wide smiles, white teeth and tanned skin and easy, happy movements.

“You ready, little brother?” Dean asks. 

Sam feels the anxiety in his chest come free, knots falling undone, and downplays his reaction, nodding once. “Yeah.”

Dean disappears into the bathroom, taking a few minutes to clean up and get changed, and when he emerges, he looks amazing, light blue jeans with no holes in them, plain black t-shirt with a ‘v’ neck, clean-shaven and glowing.

“Let’s do this,” Dean says, exuding casual joy.

They’re going. They’re actually doing this, it’s happening.

Sam doesn’t understand why he’s still feeling nervous.


	5. Chapter 5

He forgets about being nervous pretty quickly when they arrive.

Everything is brightly lit in a dizzying array of colors, tents lining the middle of the carnival in a straight line, their peaked tops striped and spotted and adorned with flags in every color imaginable. Rides rise behind them at heights from reasonable to terrifying, blinking cheerfully with colored neon lights.

The sky is pitch black beyond the bright lights of the carnival, stars obscured, the moon outshined. The carnival isn’t crowded, but there are more people here than Sam’s seen so far in the town, dressed in shorts and tank tops and brightly colored shirts, holding popcorn and cotton candy, talking and laughing and smiling in the warm night air.

It’s beautiful, in a garish way, neon lights and the overwhelming mingled smells of food, the rushing sound and electrical whir of the rides, the delighted screams and laughter amidst the music, and Sam can’t keep a smile from creeping onto his face.

“See?” Dean says, his eyes warm as he takes in Sam’s smile. “I told you it’d be fun.”

Wooden planks line the midway between the food and game tents, forming a boardwalk of sorts, a ticket booth set right at the beginning. The woman who sells them their tickets is dressed in an old fashioned, button-down coat covered in a dazzling array of sequins, silver, black, pink, purple and blue, shirt beneath spilling out frothy white waves at the neck, a huge swoop of a black hat atop her head, three colored plumes dripping from it.

“Wow, you really go all out with the costumes,” Dean remarks, and the woman gives him a wink with her heavy, black lashes, tiny silver sequins shimmering at the end of each one.

Sam feels his eyes roll, slight surge of annoyance rising inside him. It’s nothing new; women flirt with Dean as often and naturally as the tide rolls into shore, but Sam’s at the end of his patience for it. He tugs Dean by the shirt sleeve, eager to get further inside, and Dean laughs, pulling his eyes from the woman as he falls in alongside Sam. 

“Okay. First things first. Let’s find some food,” Dean says.

They don’t have to go far. The concession stand is brightly lit, red and yellow everywhere with splashes of pink and purple, signs around its circumference advertising corn dogs, lemonade, funnel cakes, french fries and chicken on a stick, images of frothy sodas overflowing with ice and buttery popcorn plastered on its ends. The Ferris wheel looms high above it in the background, neon lights on its huge spokes rippling in all the colors of the rainbow one at a time as it makes a slow rotation, carts swinging gently in the night air, white brightly lit and reflecting the neon colors. 

Another concession stand blinks merrily nearby, this one pink and purple and advertising cotton candy, candy apples, sno-cones and a variety of other treats. Dean reaches out and takes hold of Sam’s shoulder, pulling him in the direction of the scent of spun sugar.

A few minutes later Dean’s holding cotton candy in one hand and the sticks of two corn dogs between the fingers of his other. Pink sugar crystals cling to the corners of Dean’s mouth, lips a shade darker than usual, colored by the cotton candy, and his teeth are a strong, bright white as he grins, offering the fluffy confection to Sam. Sam averts his eyes from his brother, taking the curled cardboard in his hand. Light threads of sugar melt on his tongue, delightful in the instant before they clump.

Dean wolfs down one of his corndogs and Sam makes a face at him. “You’re gonna get sick on the rides,” Sam tells him before taking another bite of cotton candy.

“Never,” Dean grins, licking a bit of mustard from the corner of his mouth.

In the distance, a carousel spins and Sam can hear the calliope music between laughter and occasional shouts of joy. He lets his feet stray from the boardwalk to get a closer look, Dean following just behind.

The carousel horses are magnificent, their shapes elegant and regal and wild, their manes like rippling water frozen in time, graceful necks and bared teeth, dripping with golden bridles and feathered headdresses, dramatically shaded beneath slow blinking white lights. 

Sam cuts Dean a sidelong look. He’s definitely too old to want to ride the carousel, but he still does.

Dean wants to make a comment, Sam is sure of it, but Dean just takes a bite of his second corndog and then shrugs, chewing and swallowing before he says, “It’s your night, little brother.”

They ride the carousel, Dean sitting sideways on the back of a pretty mermaid, Sam riding a huge, exquisitely carved black horse with a silver mane. The Gravitron is next, neon lights and everything spinning so fast Sam can barely find the breath to laugh, and then the Scrambler, where Sam starts to wonder if Dean really IS going to get sick—all over him. But Dean gives him a tight smile and hangs on until the end. 

They play a few games after that; the ring toss, where Sam almost wins and Dean doesn’t even come close, and then the wall of balloons. Dean weighs each dart carefully on his fingers before he throws it, each one finding its mark in the round surface of a balloon. Sam isn’t surprised—Dean’s been playing darts in bars since he was way too young to be in them—but the guy running the game seems a little impressed.

“Pick, Sammy,” Dean tells him, hand squeezing Sam’s shoulder.

Sam’s eyes linger on a few of the animals before he decides on the big, stuffed tiger, orange and black striped with luminous green eyes. It’s huge, meant for a normal teenager’s room, and they’ll never be able to move it to their next destination, but Sam picks it anyway.

It’s so huge that he has to pull it across his back, holding the forepaws, furry softness of its face smooth against his.

“You sure you got that?” Dean asks, tone teasing.

Sam rolls his eyes and turns away, walking further down the boardwalk. 

Past the midway, where the lights dim, the boardwalk splits, flowing out like rivers toward the rides on either side. Sam walks past the wooden planks, drawn by what lies ahead off to one side. Smaller tents nestle together here, forming a narrow path made of sand, close-set and intimate, illuminated by yellow light flickering like candles, long shadows cast against the canvas from the inside. The carnival sounds fade out, the low sound of mysterious music filling the slender alleyway. Folding wooden signs stand like sentries outside each tent, their surfaces painted with advertisements for the Strong Man, the Snake Lady, the Two-Headed Boy and more. 

Dean steps up beside Sam, eyes fixed on the sights ahead. ”Freak show,” he comments, unimpressed. “Not real freaks though. Not anymore. They outlawed ‘exploiting’ real freaks a long time ago. This is all smoke and mirrors.”

Sam walks a few steps forward, intrigued despite his brother’s assertion. 

“Oooh,” Dean says, and Sam can hear his face light up. “Snake Lady. That one might be cool.”

Sam can hear the suggestive tone in Dean’s voice, drawing his eye to the Snake Lady’s sign. She’s not depicted as half snake, half woman, but rather a normal, beautiful woman with dusky skin and almond-shaped eyes, her dark eyes mysterious and arresting, normal snakes in varying sizes dripping from her arms in shades of green, red and black. Dressed in a purple bikini draped with sheer material, a forked tongue peeks from between her wickedly red lips.

“Gross, Dean,” Sam remarks, shaking his head with a roll of his eyes. Leave it to Dean to find the sleaziest thing here.

Dean shrugs, seeming unoffended.

They go to see the Strong Man instead, his huge weights black and clearly made from plastic, but he puts on an entertaining show, full of charm and bluster. At the end of the path, they find a tent in rich textures and colors, dark opening beneath a golden half-moon with a silver star hanging from its top.

“Madame Morena,” Dean reads the old-fashioned painted script on the sign. “Fortunes told and destinies divined.” Off Sam’s look, he adds, “You don’t believe in this hocus pocus, half-baked crap, do you?”

Sam lifts a shoulder in a slight shrug and steps forward. “I don’t know,” he replies, honest. “But we came here to have fun, right?”

Dean nods after a moment. “Okay. But if she starts talking about tall dark strangers and coming into sudden money, we’re out.”

Dean takes the stuffed tiger from him, and Sam moves forward, velvety curtains brushing past his face.

The room is sparsely lit by candles, shadows filling the edges and flickering, small circular table at the middle covered by red velvet embroidered by silver stars. A woman sits at the far side of it.

Madame Morena is dark-haired, with ivory skin and narrow, wide-set dark eyes, wrapped in exotically patterned silks and scarves of deep purple and crimson red. Nose long and hooked, face an oval with a sharply pointed chin, and there’s something almost hawkish about her features. But it’s her eyes that hold Sam fast; dark and fathomless, ringed in thick black eyeliner, lashes practically dripping from the dramatic, silvery-green lids. Irises so brown they look almost black, pupils lost within, sharp glint of intelligence in them, wisdom of knowledge just beneath.

“What is your name?” she asks, her voice is deep and somehow melodic, lilting like the words to a song.

“Sam Winchester,” he replies, standing fascinated before her.

She makes a graceful motion with one hand, indicating the chair across from her. 

Candles flicker in the corners as Dean lets the curtain behind them fall back into place, and Sam realizes he’s staring, moving quickly to sit down across from her.

“Sorry,” he says. “I’ve…never done this before.”

Beside him, Dean shifts, muttering something Sam can’t quite understand.

Madame Morena seems unruffled by it all, simply nods, as if accepting his reply, her fingers skimming red velvet before they reach across, touch his, folding his hand into both of hers. Her touch is warm and smooth, her manner mesmerizing.

“Money will have to be exchanged before I can tell you anything.” Her words are soft, nearly apologetic, and next to Sam, Dean rolls his eyes and throws down a ten.

Madam Morena nods in acceptance and then pulls Sam’s hand closer, examining it. She looks for a long moment, eyes traveling the lines of Sam’s hand thoroughly before she releases her hold, seeming thoughtful. After a moment, she pulls a deck of cards from beneath her robes, unwrapping them from inside some kind of animal skin, careful as she shuffles them and then spreads them across the table.

“I read palms and tarot for many people,” Madam Morena says, her dark eyes holding his. “But most of them are trivial, forgettable. Tiny people with tiny lives.” She makes a gesture with one hand, dark, painted nails flicking at the air. “But you…” She leans forward, crooked smile curving one side of her mouth, plush red casing against bright white teeth. “You have a  _ destiny _ , Sam Winchester. Do you know how rare that is?” Her voice is low and intimate, almost eager.

“Sure he does,” Dean remarks, voice flip and just a shade too casual.

Her chin rises, dark eyes regarding Dean for a long moment in silence. An insouciant smile plays about his brother’s lips, eyes flinty and cool as he meets her gaze. She looks down at the table then, dark eyes following the trail of cards as she flips her hand and smoothes them across red velvet. 

“Do you know the tarot?” she asks. “Similar to a normal deck of cards, four suits, each unique with royalty at the upper end. But there is also the Major Arcana, each card also unique—

“We’re familiar,” Dean cuts her off with a roll of his eyes. 

She only pauses for a moment before continuing. “Very well. Your destiny lies in the future, Sam Winchester,” she remarks as she surveys the cards before her. “But your...question...is more immediate.” Her eyes meet Sam’s directly and with purpose. “Choose,” she says, gesturing to the cards before her.

Sam doesn’t understand destiny, he barely understands his life, but he understands her directive. His fingers move, sliding across crushed velvet, touching the surface of cards until he feels…something, forefinger coming down hard on the edge of a single card, pulling it closer to him. 

Madam Morena reaches out, hesitating for a moment before she claims it, nimble fingers flipping it over.

She looks at it for a moment, tilting her head to one side, and then begins to speak in her deep, melodic tone. “We begin with your present. We begin with Death.” Dean snorts, and she continues on as if she hadn’t heard him at all. “He who rides on a pale horse carries a sickle, but it is not always souls he seeks. Sometimes he reaps the old ways, sweeps them aside to make way for new, life-changing events. It almost certainly means he will reap part of your innocence with whatever he takes.” Her eyes flick up from the card to meet his. “Something in your life is ending, Sam Winchester, and something new is about to begin. Something that will alter the fabric of your life for all time. Your innocence is ending.”

Her words weave around him like a spell, pulling at his edges and binding him tight, and he can hardly think of what she means, can hardly think at all.

She nods to the cards, indicating him to choose another. His fingers move faster this time, lingering only for a second over the one he wants before he pulls it free.

She pulls it to her and flips it over, and then a slow smile creases her face.

“The Lovers.” She pauses, and then she says, “This is your near future, Sam. Your true love is closer than you think,” she tells him. “They are right before you. So close you can almost taste them. All you have to do is reach out.” She closes her eyes for a moment, dark lashes a butterfly flutter against her cheeks, then blinking open. “Green eyes and full lips, sun-kissed skin.” The words fall from her as if they’re a realization, then fix on him as if she knows him, soul to skin.

“Dawn?” Sam asks, startled from his near-trance. He can feel the hard look Dean gives him, sharp daggers thrown with intent. Dean doesn’t even believe in love. Dean also doesn’t think Sam should be giving her any information, and dammit, he’d slipped, offering up Dawn’s name. But she’d been right, described Dawn exactly.

“The temptation of your heart will be known,” Madam Morena says as if stating a fact. 

She lets the words hang on the sweet, wax-scented air, and then nods to the cards again.

His eyes scan the trailing spread of cards, lighting on the one he wants almost immediately. He draws it free, slides it to her.

She flips it over, fingers smoothing the edge of the card. “The outcome of your near future is told here, in the story of the World.”

“All major Arcana?” Dean asks with a soft snort.

Madame Morena blinks and looks up at him, mild. “You don’t strike me as minor Arcana people.” 

Dean shifts his stance, uncrossing and recrossing his arms, silent.

Madame Morena looks back down at the card. “This love you will find, Sam Winchester...” She hesitates, touching the edge of the card again, and her lilting voice is filled with wonder. “It is the life-altering event Death foretold. It will be with you always. It is the end of your journey. The World outcome in a love reading speaks of soulmates, of forever.” She looks up, meeting Sam’s eyes with intensity. “This is no passing brush with love, Sam.” Her brows draw together, as if with concern, and she shakes her head once. “You are so young to know such a thing.”

Forever? Sam thinks. He’s sixteen. He’ll be gone from this town in a few weeks at most. There’s no forever with anyone here. No matter how much he likes Dawn, he’ll probably never see her again after they move on.

Dean is stiff and silent beside him, and Sam is only tangentially aware of him, his mind churning, tumultuous.

Madame Morena picks up the cards and shuffles them all together before spreading them across the table again. “Draw again,” she instructs. “I am curious about your destiny, San Winchester.”

“Spare us the destiny bullshit, lady.” Dean’s voice is offhand and harsh, dismissive.

She ignores Dean, eyes fixed on Sam. “This time for me?” She asks with an arch of one dark brow. “Call it an indulgence.”

Sam is barely aware of either of them, instinct guiding his hand to choose another card.

She frowns as she flips it over, lips pursing in thought, and Sam feels light-headed, almost drunk as his brain struggles to put together the pieces of her first reading.

“The Devil,” she remarks, one dark nail tapping against the table. “This is interesting. Pick again, Sam, please.”

Sam reaches out and picks another card without thinking at all, still lost in the tangle of his thoughts.

Madame Morena hisses like she’d been burned as she flips the card over, fingers trembling as they wilt away from the table. She’s deathly pale, risque mouth trembling as she begins to rise, backing from the table. “That’s impossible.”

Sam blinks, struggling to understand what’s happening. 

The cards Sam had chosen lie face up, side by side on the table. They both depict the exact same image; a horned man sitting atop a throne. The words “The Devil” are written above his beautiful, smirking features. 

That can’t be right. Each card is unique...

On impulse, he reaches out and flips over another card.

The Devil.

“This isn’t funny,” Dean fairly growls at the woman.

Madame Morena is trembling, white as a sheet and terrified as she backs another step away from them.

Sam flips over another card.

The Devil.

She must have rigged the deck, Sam thinks, slowly, like thinking through molasses. And it isn’t important…because what she’d said before…about true love and forever—that had felt real.

“Come on, Sam.” Dean’s voice is tight, dark with danger as his fingers close around Sam’s wrist. He rises to his feet, pulling Sam with him. “We’re leaving.” Dean never takes his eyes from the woman as he speaks, pulling Sam close as they walk backward from the tent. 

Velvety purple material caresses Sam’s face for an instant, brushing past, and the warm night breeze teases at his hair. His brother’s fingers are still closed tight about his wrist and his heart feels just as constricted, too tight and hot inside his skin. His mind whirls, light and sound like the carousel earlier, thoughts jumbled and set spinning, too fast and bright to catch.

“Dean,” he whispers.

“Don’t worry about her,” Dean says, dismissive, more relaxed as he turns Sam by the shoulder, arm slinging across the back of Sam’s neck, resting on his shoulders. “She’s full of shit.”

“But…” Sam stops, turning inside his brother’s arm to look at him. “What she said before, it doesn’t make sense…”

“None of it made any sense, little brother. She was just winding you up.” Dean cuts a nasty look over his shoulder towards the tent. “I knew we shouldn’t have gone in there.”

Years from now, chills reverberating through his spine, blood gone cold as ice, stomach an empty, hopeless pit, he’ll remember the second reading she never gave him. But in the moment, it’s forgotten; less than worth noting. 

“No, but Dean, the first reading,” Sam is insistent. “It felt right. But how can it be if—”

“You are really wound up, aren’t you?” Dean asks, his voice almost soft with disbelief. He’s still got the tiger on his back, stiff forelegs stuck tight around his neck so he doesn’t have to hold it, and he stops then, turning Sam to face him, one hand on each of Sam’s shoulders. “Forget what she said, Sammy. What’s real is what’s right here.” Dean moves his head left, then right, catching Sam’s eyes and holding them with his own. “Stay with me, okay?”

The pressure of Dean’s hands on his shoulders grounds him, bringing him back to himself. Sam releases a breath like a long sigh and gives a shaky nod. He breathes in again, deeply, letting the warm night air fill his lungs, and feels himself begin to solidify, mind calming. Dean gives him a moment, and the realness of his brother’s eyes on his, the feel of the night breeze on his skin slowly brings him down to earth until he nods again, almost without shaking this time.

“All right,” Dean says with a grin, clapping Sam on one shoulder. The motion sets the tiger rocking across Dean’s shoulders and he has to let go of Sam, reach up and grab it before it falls from his shoulders. 

“So. You ready for the House of Fear or what?” Dean asks, like he’s eager to change the subject. Dean cocks his head slightly at Sam, two sets of green eyes regarding him; Dean’s that twinkle with mischief, and the flat emerald of the tiger’s that nonetheless seem to echo Dean’s question.

“Sure.” Sam nods and takes another deep breath. “But if there’s clowns…”

“I said I’d protect you, didn’t I?” Dean asks, eyes widening like he can’t believe Sam would think otherwise.

“You think it’s  _ funny _ ,” Sam accuses, focused fully on the moment now.

Dean lifts his other hand from Sam’s shoulder, scratching at the back of one ear. “Well, it  _ is _ kinda—”

“It’s a  _ phobia _ , Dean.” Sam enunciates every word, clipping them so hard there might as well be a period after each one. “Promise me.”

“Okay, okay.” Dean holds up the hand that had been scratching at his ear, and then turns it inward, forefinger pointed towards himself. He draws a slow “x” over his heart. “I promise.”

Sam’s mouth twists with uncertainty for a moment, and then, seeing the earnest look in his brother’s eyes, he nods. “Okay.”

*

They have to check the tiger at the gate, leaving it in the hands of a man dressed in a tailed tuxedo and wearing a tragedy mask. Dean arches a skeptical brow at the guy and then shrugs, shoving it into the man’s arms before he pulls Sam along by the shoulder.

Long sheets of black plastic flap around them as they step inside, fog machine spewing mist into their faces against the dim green light.

Sam coughs out a breath filled with fog, looking at Dean sideways. “Do we really have to?”

“It’s gonna be great,” Dean proclaims, grabbing him by the shoulder. 

Dean turns his head to the side and coughs out mist. “Could turn down the fog machine a little though.”

*

The House of Fear is filled with too much fog, every twist and turn lined by black plastic sheeting, most of it bordering on pitch black, “monsters” leaping at them from every side as they pass. They’re shuttled into tiny room after tiny room, one filled with brighter lighting than the others, a young woman lying on an operating table, her midsection cut open, evil doctors pulling limp spaghetti from her body with glee, shoving it into their mouths like zombies. 

“Classic,” Dean whispers, and Sam pushes him into the next tight, dark hallway.

It leads to another brightly lit chamber, stone sarcophagus at its center, mummy wrapped in pretty convincing bandages Sam thinks look legitimately old before it bursts from its stone confines and comes for them, arms slashing bluntly through the air.

“Go, go, go,” Sam urges, laughing, and maybe this is fun after all. It’s silly, none of the monsters are going to hurt them, which is a nice change from real life, and maybe he sees what Dean sees in this after all.

The mummy groans, receding behind them, and they move through dark corridors that split, once, twice, and then again. Sam can feel the space open up around him; he’s in a room. But this one isn’t lit, blackness like a shroud. A light strobes to his left, and he reaches backward, turning.

Dean isn’t there anymore. He’d been there not a minute before, breathing out hard laughter, and Sam feels suddenly bereft without him.

It’s okay. A place like this, it’s likely they set up the hallways to separate people. So he and Dean aren’t together right now, he’ll be fine. Some fake chainsaws, a zombie or two and he’ll be out. He reaches out, hand touching black plastic, and light explodes like a flashbulb, so bright it nearly blinds him. He grips the plastic hard, blinking and taking a deep breath before he lifts his head, determined to feel his way through.

Light flashes again, illuminating something in the room with him.

Its face is ghostly white, greasy, wild smear of red across its lips, frizzy tufts of green hair sticking out from either side of its head. A tall, pointed white hat sits atop its head, ending at a red, fuzzy ball the same shape and color as its nose. Black paint fills the hollows beneath its yellow eyes, pupils black and slitted like a snake’s as they fix on Sam. 

White light flashes and ripples like lightning, its features appearing and disappearing.

Clown. It’s a fucking  _ clown _ , and Sam is frozen in place with terror, feet rooted to the ground, panic tingling in every nerve ending, brain screaming at him to run, body locked up tight. Scream rising from his belly, trapped in his throat, the clown grins at him with huge, sharp teeth, gloved fingers wiggling as it  _ leaps _ —

And then Dean is there, between them like a shot, bumping into Sam as the clown runs into him. Dean takes it by the shoulders and shoves it backward.

“Back off, Bozo,” Dean fairly growls. “He doesn’t like clowns.”

The clown straightens, posture suddenly becoming more human, menace leaving it in an instant. “It’s just the job, man,” comes the clown’s muffled voice, and he sounds like a normal guy underneath the makeup.

The message from Sam’s brain finally gets through and his feet move, carrying him swiftly through the dark. The world is almost completely black and it feels distorted, strange music warbling in and out. He can hear footsteps running after him and he runs even faster, sweat pouring out of him, heart beating so hard he feels like it might burst, and then there are hands on him, spinning him around, and he almost screams—  
  
“It’s me, Sammy. It’s just me.”

Heart hammering in his chest and he turns, reaches out in the inky blackness, searching for the familiar warmth of his brother.

“Jesus,” Dean breathes, winded. “I thought you were gonna end up three states away before you slowed down.”

Sam’s hands shake, lips trembling, heart still in his throat, sudden adrenaline leaving him angry. He reaches out, smacking Dean in the chest, and it’s then he realizes there are tears in his eyes.

“Ow.” 

Dean sounds surprised, and Sam’s glad it’s dark, that Dean can’t see how upset he really is. It’s dark and Dean never has to know if he can just hold it together for a couple minutes until he calms down.

Sam breathes in and his breath hitches, catching in his throat and threatening to send everything crumbling down. He’s sixteen, he shouldn’t be this scared of a stupid clown. He can’t let Dean know he’s this close to crying.

Dean seems to go very still in the darkness, and Sam wonders if he knows anyway, if he heard the hitch in Sam’s breath and figured it out. Sam tenses through his trembling, waiting for Dean to make some kind of snide comment. But his brother doesn’t say anything at all.

“You said you’d protect me.” Sam’s voice is a thin, wavering whisper and he hates the way it sounds.

“Come on, Sammy,” Dean whispers, and in the darkness, Sam feels Dean’s hand creep near his, fingers seeking the spaces between Sam’s. “I got you.”

Memories of being little, his brother’s hand clasped around his, comfort and warmth that he hasn’t felt in so many years. Strange to feel it now after so long, and he’s sure Dean’s messing with him, that in a second Dean will snatch his hand away and make some kind of joke. Sam wants to yank away, beat Dean to the punch, but something inside him wants this more, and he clenches his fingers around his brother’s, holding Dean fast, so Dean can’t pull away.

“It’s okay,” Dean whispers, squeezing Sam’s hand. “We’ll be fine.”

Fumbling through darkness, down hallways and around corners, and Sam knows they’re skirting other scary things, screams coming from their left on a regular basis. They verge left into a wider hallway, and there’s a faint light in the distance, growing steadily brighter as Dean leads him through the dark, threading their way around things that leap and jump and scream.

“See,” Dean says in a near whisper as he turns to look at Sam. “I told you we’d be fine.”

His fingers still twined through Sam’s and for an instant, looking at his big brother in the dim light, he’s reminded of a different pair of eyes. Dean’s eyes are a clear, bright green, not quite the emerald green of hers, but they mesmerize Sam the same way, leave him grasping for words just out of reach, breath caught in his chest.

His heart is still pounding, thundering in his ears, Dean’s fingers laced through his, his brother’s face so close to his, and he’s so gorgeous it makes Sam’s heart ache, a sharp, sweet sadness he’s never felt before.

Long moments pass, their eyes locked together in silence, and the feel of Dean so near is magnetic, drawing Sam in. Something in Dean’s face changes, softens somehow, vague surprise beneath, and Sam thinks he feels it too; this sudden, breathless, inescapable pull. Their chests rise and fall rapidly, hands closed together in a single fist, and Sam lets his forehead tilt forward, touching skin to skin, trusting and given, his lips bare inches from Dean’s. Comfort and home, heat and sweetness, and it’s never been like this before, so many times in danger but never danger like this. Wild and reckless and somehow free, standing at the edge of a cliff about to fall.

“Sam.” The word falls from Dean, breathless as Sam feels.

From behind them comes a sudden shriek and then laughter as footsteps stumble, running toward them.

Sam feels the moment break; rainbow skin of a soap bubble fracturing, dissipating. Sudden, sharp intake of breath, and Dean’s fingers fall from Sam’s, confusion fleeting across his features.

A teenage girl rushes past them, her face contorted with laughter, blonde ponytail trailing after her, and then two more teenage girls follow, one in a red shirt and the other nearly lost to shadow.

Dean takes a step away from Sam, his face almost lost to shadow, light skimming the line of his nose, the curve of his cheekbone, and Sam wishes he could see Dean’s expression, wants to step forward and take Dean’s hand again. They stand there for the span of a few quick heartbeats, frozen by uncertainty, and then Dean turns, hand catching Sam’s shoulder in a brief touch that slides off. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Dean says, feet moving in the direction the girls had gone.

Sam nods, still shaking inside, knees quivering as if they might betray him and send him spilling to the ground. Sweat trails down his neck, tickling as it follows the curve of his spine, and his heart is a red rhythm in his mind, racing through the confusion of his thoughts. 

He’s…angry? He’s angry at the girls for interrupting them, angry at Dean for acting like everything is fine and they hadn’t just… Just what?

He’s angry and he doesn’t know why, doesn’t know what it is he’d wanted on the other end of Dean’s hand laced through his. He’s shaken, cheeks burning with inexplicable shame that grows stronger with each step they take towards the exit, bright light looming like a revelation in the distance, and he can’t stand the thought of Dean seeing him flustered like this, doesn’t want to face the inevitable questions he has no answers for. Anger grows bright within him, a dark star fed by shame, Dean somehow at the center of it all, and he’s gripped by the sudden need to just get out—get away. 

He breaks into a jog, hurtling past his brother, and he doesn’t stop. Not to check in with the guy at the end who seems concerned, not with the guy at the beginning who still has his huge tiger in tow. He runs, finding his way to the midway and following it out, past the rainbow sequined woman still selling tickets, all the way to the place where the water meets sand, quiet of the beach calming him a little.

Going back to the carnival is out of the question, the idea of going to the motel room even less appealing. Both of those places leave him facing down Dean with all these strange emotions still swirling inside him. 

There is one other place he can go.


	6. Chapter 6

She’s there; of course she’s there—she’s always there. Long chestnut hair hanging free down her back, three tiny braids woven down one side along her face, twists of white seashells dangling from the ends. She’s dressed in her sky blue bikini, its color paler beneath the moonlight, sheer sarong knotted above one curved hip, trailing down past her knees as she runs to meet him.

“Sam,” her voice is breathless as he catches her in his arms, pulls her close, momentum carrying the warmth of her body into him with a jolt. 

“Sam, are you okay?” she asks, drawing back to look at him.

“No,” he whispers, and then shakes his head. “I don’t know.” And then he goes still, looking down at her, imploring. “Kiss me.”

She stares at him for a moment, surprise and confusion in her delicate features, and then her brow furrows with something like determination, lips rising to meet his with sudden swiftness. 

She’s beautiful, almost otherworldly, skin sun-kissed and glowing, smell of sea and sun caught in her hair, seashells at the tips of her tiny braids clinking together. Warm and sweet in his arms, mouth hot and eager, kissing him like she’s starving. He’s so full of feelings, so full of everything that he feels like he might burst. 

“Is there something you want to tell me?” she asks between heated kisses, and Sam guesses there is, words lodged in his chest, the compulsion to speak them so strong he can hardly stand it. He has to speak, has to make it known.

“I love you,” Sam whispers, the words an exhale, heated and rushed. He lets them fall from his lips, their implications hanging at the end of his tongue, heavy and metallic with the taste of fear across the ensuing silence. It’s terrifying in a completely normal way, and there’s relief in the confession, because this is what people say to each other all the time, and when people are scared to say the words, it’s for normal reasons. Because they don’t feel safe, or their heart beats too fast, or it means more than they know how to say. 

The words leave him with relief and terror, the shape and taste of them all wrong. But they have to be true, Madame Morena had said it would be her, and it has to be her because—

Because she’s beautiful and wonderful and she deserves to hear  _ I love you _ —deserves to be  _ loved _ by him. Because he deserves something as amazing as she is. Something real, something normal. So he says,  _ I love you _ , out loud, for the first time in his life, to a beautiful, wonderful girl who deserves to hear it, and he thinks it must be right. Wonders why it leaves him feeling empty and hollow inside.

She’s so still, staring at him, fear beginning to snake through his veins at last, and for a moment, heart thundering in his chest, he wants to take it all back.

“Oh, Sam,” she sighs at last, her green eyes wide. “I wish that were true. It should be true.”

Sam looks at her, shaken, voice trembling as he asks, “What?”

“It should be me you love,” she tells him, kissing the corner of his mouth, dizzying heat of her mouth so close to his. “But it isn’t.”

“Of course it is.” He knows the words are a lie somehow, the moment they leave him, but they  _ shouldn’t  _ be.

“I tried so hard,” she whispers, and Sam is mesmerized by the intensity of her emerald green eyes. “I made myself look like him—green eyes, full lips, freckles…and still.” She sighs, shaking her head. 

World slowly spinning, spiralling apart, and he doesn’t understand, he doesn’t understand at all.

“My name is Dawn, Sam.” Her voice is thick with derision. “Dawn; Dean. It couldn’t be much closer without being completely obvious.”

_ Green eyes, full lips, sun-kissed skin.  _ The words slither through Sam’s mind, rife with meaning, heavy with promise.

“It would have been better if you loved me,” she says, and for a moment her face is fragile, so delicate, carved from sugar-spun glass. “Because if you loved me,” she says, soft and sweet, “you’d let me kill you.” Her voice is breathy heat, thick molasses, and Sam feels like he’s drowning in it. “You’d be begging me to kiss you, kill you, take you back to the sea with me.”

Time slows, trapped in a nightmare, world turning upside down, inside out and back around, Sam feeling caught beneath the surface of the sea, hands reaching up for the fractals of moonlight dancing on the surface. 

“I’ve been trapped here, cursed, so long, Sam.” Her face is innocent, so young. “I’ve been so alone.” 

Understanding comes with a sudden click, and he can’t think, thoughts tumbling chaos except for a single voice that rings out clear, tells him he’s right back where he’s always been. He knows this; he’s been here before and he can barely believe it’s happening again.

Something inside his brain turns over, sliding into place. “The disappearances over the years... The teenagers. That was you.” Sam inhales. A deep, shaky breath pulled down his bones, body shuddering as he breathes out. “You’re a monster.”

“Labels,” she admonishes, gentle and exasperated. “I’m a shark, Sam. We kill to eat. That’s evolution. Not deliberation.”

“Everything about this was deliberate,” Sam hisses, anger rising to fill him, sudden and complete. 

She tilts her head to one side, click and chitter of seashells amongst her hair, her eyes clear green and irrevocably empty. “Even a monster wants to be loved.” One delicate shoulder rises, moonlight playing over her skin, and she’s so beautiful, so everything a normal boy would want.

And then her face tightens, cold anger shaping it, eyes narrowing, full mouth going taut.

“But you’re not in love with me,” she tells him, every syllable enunciated with rancor, acid dripping from the words. “You’re in love with your  _ brother. _ ” The words are delivered like a whiplash, impact landing across Sam with sudden, shocking guilt. Deep, stinging pain that sinks to his bones.

“What?” he asks, careful edge of danger in his voice, but he’s sliding backward now, fingers grasping at wet sand slipping through his fingers.

“Please.” She rolls her eyes. “You stink of him. This whole game... Telling me you love me? I’m not stupid, Sam. I’ve been around a long time, and you’ve been a challenge like nothing else.” She shakes her head, shells clicking, chestnut waves shivering. “I’d like to believe I turned you…but no. You love him. You want to love me because it’s what you’re supposed to do. A boy and a girl…not a boy and his brother.”

Sam can’t form words, shaking his head as he stares down at her.

“Come with me, Sam,” she pleads. “You don’t want to be here, anyway. What kind of life can you have? Being in love with  _ Dean _ ?”

Sam has never heard his brother’s name spoken with such disgust, and Sam knows it isn’t disgust for Dean; it’s for  _ him _ . For the way he—

He almost agrees then. The urge to go with her, to leave this life, is so strong that he almost tells her yes. 

“It’s so much sweeter if you say yes,” she says, as if she’d read his mind, and she must have, he thinks, realizing. She must have, or how else would she know all the things she knows, how would she have known what Dean looks like, or that Sam was…

“Please say yes,” she begs him. Beneath the moonlight, her features begin to run, melting like wax, shifting and changing. “I thought it would be too much if I looked like him. But I can, Sam. It’s the only way you’ll ever have what you want. And then you…” Her hands come up, clasping his face between them, her eyes wide, melting pools of green. “And then you’ll love me.”

Dean’s eyes staring at him now, the rest of her face malleable, uncertain, ever-changing. Skin bubbling, bones popping and crackling as they slide and shift, and none of that matters. Dean’s eyes looking up at him like Sam’s the most amazing thing he’s ever seen, and Sam is caught up in them, forgetting everything else.

He knows then. He understands, the full force of the truth hitting him head-on like a truck, cracking open the careful shell he’d constructed inside himself. The reason he’s been so drawn in by Dean, so conscious of Dean’s every move, the way Dean has shaken him to the core almost every time they’re together. Floodgates breaking open, crashing through him, rolling over him and pulling him under.

That’s why it had felt wrong to say  _ I love you _ to her; she wasn’t the person he’d wanted to say it to.

He’s terrified by the sheer magnitude of the feeling, the way he’s almost ready to accept her offer—anything, if he can have Dean like that in his life—and he is so fucked, wants so badly to believe in what she’s offering.

Dean’s eyes staring up at him with so much love and want, and he feels himself beginning to let go.

“Dean,” he whispers.

“Sammy!” Dean’s voice is a loud, answering shout from his right. “Get down!”

Sam blinks, moment shattering, and he pushes back from the image of Dean’s eyes, shoving Dawn’s ravaged, shifting body away from him.

“Sam,” she gasps, in a garbled, twisted voice that’s barely hers.

He falls to the sand and Dean’s arm cuts through his vision against the starry night sky, large heavy rock held in his hand. Sam hears it strike with a meaty thump, hears her scream in anger and pain before a body hits the ground, sound of blows rising and falling again and again until at last everything goes quiet.

“Sammy?” Dean asks, breathing hard. “Are you okay?”

Dean reaches out, touching Sam’s hand and Sam grabs on, holds tight. Dean pulls him to his feet, their chests nearly touching. His brother—not the thing lying in misshapen lumps against the sand, already beginning to disappear, dissolving into seawater. His real, actual brother, so close he can feel the heat of Dean’s breath against his face.

“Are you okay?” Dean asks again.

Wide eyes brimming with tears, Sam stares at him. He means to shake his head, stumble over the word ‘no’, and then his face slams into his brother’s, mouths colliding in a sudden crush of lips and teeth.

For a moment, stillness, Dean seems to cease to even breathe, and then he draws back, his eyes wider and rounder than Sam’s ever seen them, green depths filled with amazement.

“Sam? What…why?” Dean’s lashes flutter with confusion, and he’s the most gorgeous thing Sam’s ever seen.

Sam knows the truth now; he can’t ever not know it again.

“Because it should have been you.” The words pour out of Sam, almost unbidden. “It was her…but it should have been you.” Dean’s face is a puzzle Sam doesn’t know how to solve, and Sam rushes through the rest of the words, trying to make him understand. “Even she knew it. She said—she said—” Sam stutters, halting.

“Slow down.” Dean squeezes Sam’s hand. “We’ll figure it out. You just…you just got confused is all.”

“No.” Sam’s contradiction is vehement, so emphatic that Deans goes completely still again. “No. I wasn’t confused, Dean. I’m  _ not  _ confused,” he corrects, certainty filling him with intense heat.

Dean—so quick and smooth with words and charm, Dean, who’s always ready with a joke or a smile, who always knows what to do—stares at Sam in silence, speechless.

Very carefully, his brother lets go of his hand, turning away from Sam to look out at the beach. Fear swoops up from Sam’s stomach, turning him upside down and sending his heart spinning in panic.

_ Your true love is closer than you know.  _ Madame Morena’s voice, slipping through his mind.

It’s a knife into Sam’s stomach that he should have seen coming, twist and shove up into his heart, tear and rend and shattered pieces falling into place alongside all the other ones he’s carried for so long. He’s fucked, he’s as good as dead and he knows it fully for the first time.

He’s in love. And it should be glorious, should be beautiful and perfect, should be everything he’s ever been promised by the books he’s read, the movies he’s seen. But it’s nothing like that.

He’s in love with Dean.

He’s in love with his brother.

His brother, who stands with his back to Sam, staring out across the beach. His brother, who knows better, who’s about to tell Sam how sick he is. 

“I’m sorry.” The words fall from Sam in a desperate gasp.

Dean pushes his hands into his pockets, lowers his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

It doesn’t matter that he’s sorry; he knows. But he needs Dean to understand this much, if not everything. “I’m sorry,” he breathes out the words with hope.  _ Please forgive me. _

“Stop.” Dean’s voice is a reprimand, harsh and final. His brother shakes his head, looks up at the stars. “This is not okay, Sam. It’s not even in the  _ realm _ of okay.”

Sam. Not Sammy.

“I know.” The words are all Sam has to give. The moon has risen, a half coin against the brilliant stars, its dark side as unknown as his brother's heart. Light plays against the waves of the ocean, bright and dancing, and he’s just a boy, a boy in love with someone he should never be.

“If you know, then…why?” Dean asks, like he doesn’t understand, like he can’t believe.

“Because…” Sam falters, uncertain for a moment, and then the words rise to his lips, pouring out before he can think about them. 

“Because you’re the only one who’s ever mattered,” he says. “Because you’ve always taken care of me,” he goes on, stepping forward toward Dean across the sand. “Because you know me better than anyone else and you  _ try _ …you always try to make my life better.” Sam takes another step forward, eyes focused on the expanse of his brother’s shoulders. “Even when I act like an asshole, like I don’t want you to, you still try, Dean and you never give up.” Another step, then another, and in a moment he’s close to Dean, so close he could touch him, if he dared.

“Because you make breakfast for me in the morning, or leave it on the table for me when you’re not there. Because you build blanket forts with me even though we’re too old for it, take me to carnivals and protect me from clowns. And yeah, sometimes you’re an asshole too, but you  _ try _ .” Sam takes a deep breath, blinking back the wetness in his eyes. “You’re the only one who really knows me, Dean. And I could go my whole life and never be able to find anyone who’d love me as much as you do.”

He leans in, cheek resting against his brother's shoulder, and he knows this moment is delicate, that he’s risking everything, but he knows he won’t rest until he says it all. He’s come undone inside, the dam finally broken, and he can’t stop it. Peace or utter desolation lie in Dean knowing the truth, but Sam can’t stop, has to know which it will be.

“I love you, Dean,” he whispers, whole of his heart in the words. “I love you so much that it’s stupid. I love you and I wish I could stop, because I know it’s wrong—the world says it’s wrong—but everything in me says it’s right…it’s right, and I can’t stop and part of me doesn’t even want to.”

“Sam.” Dean hisses his name, pain and warning in the word, a warning for him to stop, a crack in his voice like space for a reprieve between them.

There is no space for reprieve, Sam knows, much as Dean might wish it. Fear strikes him cold, bone-deep and straight to his heart, and he knows this is it; this is the moment that will hold them together or break them apart forever. He could refrain, he could hold it all in, stay safe and quiet and live forever as just brothers, and at least then he could keep Dean in his life. He doesn’t want to lose Dean, can’t imagine his life without Dean, but he doesn’t know how to live with this secret inside him anymore.

“You’re my brother,” Sam’s voice quavers with the words, but he’s certain as he speaks, “and I love you as my brother.” He takes a deep breath, pushes on, “But I love you as more than that, Dean. I want you as more than that. Fuck, I  _ dream _ of you as more than that.”

His brother is still as stone, a statue carved from marble, immovable and untouched. The most beautiful piece of art never revealed by Michealangelo’s hand, wrought by something finer, even more beautiful and perfect.

“Sam.” Dean whispers his name like a prayer, sad and somehow reverent.

“You don’t feel the same way.” Sam breathes the words against his brother’s unmoved shoulder, warmth of his breath flowing back into him. “It’s okay,” he says, quickly, his vision blurring as tears spring to his eyes. He’s said what he needed to say, and now he knows. Dean isn’t going to miraculously forgive him, admit his feelings and grab Sam in a heated kiss, and Sam never really thought he would. He’d hoped, though. He’d dreamed.

He draws away from his brother slowly, spine straightening as he stands at his full height. He’d thought he would feel better, telling the truth, but now he’s spilled it out like vomiting all over the sand, sudden release like relief, and then embarrassment on top of pain returning. 

It’s like that, he thinks. Like a sickness. Only even getting out of him doesn’t make it better.

Dean straightens then, shoulders squaring in the instant before he turns on Sam, green eyes blazing under moonlight.

“You think I don’t know?” Dean demands, anger rising in his voice, low tremble of thunder.

“You think I don’t fucking know what it’s like?” he asks again, hands rising up, meeting Sam’s shoulders as he pushes him back. Dean’s body is alive like a live wire, stone shed from his skin, trembling and shaking, furious, a volcano coming to life and Sam deserves it, deserves every bit of the explosion.

Sam staggers back across the sand as Dean advances on him, livid.

“Living with you, day in, day out. You’re there all the fucking time, Sam. My responsibility, my little brother, the one thing I’m not allowed to fuck up.” Dean’s hands push against his shoulders again, sparks flying from his brother’s eyes. 

“The one thing I’m not allowed to fuck up, and here you are, telling me you’re in love with me?” Dean’s eyes are wide, incredulous and full of beautiful fire. “Fuck, Sam. I’ve ruined  _ everything _ if this is how you feel. I have fucked up so far beyond belief the  _ devil _ just cancelled my penthouse in Hell.”

Sam regains his balance and shakes his head, facade beginning to crumble in the face of his brother’s wrath. “You don’t believe in Hell.” It’s a stupid thing to say, but it’s all he come up with, the only contradiction he can offer.

“It’s a fucking  _ metaphor _ , Sam. Jesus  _ Christ _ ,” Dean hisses.

Dean seems at a loss, like he doesn’t know what else to say, and Sam needs him to know, “You didn’t fuck up, Dean. This isn’t your fault—”

“Yes, it is,” Dean corrects him, and his laugh is a humorless, black chuckle as he advances another step on Sam. “You think I’ve never thought about it?” Dean demands, still seething. “Who else is ever gonna know me like you, Sam? All the good parts, all the bad parts, this whole fucked up life—nobody is ever gonna understand me like you do. No one’s ever gonna be in my heart like you. But it’s because you’re my  _ brother _ , and we can’t mistake that for something else.”

_ We? _ Sam thinks, the word catching, holding in his mind. He looks at Dean, light dawning. “You’ve…you’ve thought about it too.”

“Haven’t you been listening?” Dean asks, acidic, eyes still blazing with fury. “Of course I have, Sam. That doesn’t make it okay. And the fact that you’ve thought about it—” Dean breaks off, shaking his head, disconsolate. “It’s because I didn’t shut it down hard enough. I must have let it show, and I let it infect you, too.”

Sam is beyond stunned, thunderstruck by his brother’s admission. Sam’s jaw works, trying to find words, all of them failing him, long, eternal moments seeming to pass before he finally breathes out, “I had no idea, Dean.”

Dean stares at Sam, shaking his head with incredulous anger. “We really are this fucked up, aren’t we?” Dean gives a short, hollow laugh that hurts Sam’s heart.

Sam wants to ease that hurt, to take his brother’s heart between his hands and comfort it, shelter it, keep it safe. He takes a step across the sand, and says, “Kiss me, Dean. Kiss me and then tell me if it still feels wrong.”

“No.” Dean’s response is sudden and sharp as a whip crack, and he doesn’t quite meet Sam’s eyes, gaze skirting Sam’s as he takes a step backward.

“You’re scared,” Sam realizes aloud. 

The laugh that escapes Dean is quiet, defeated. “Would that make you happy?”

“Why are you scared?” Sam asks, unable to fathom it. Dean, his big brother, who’s faced monsters and witches and never been scared of anything.

“Because if I  _ kiss _ you, Sam,” Dean hisses, vehement, “I’m not going to want to stop. How’s that for fucked up? You’re my little brother, and you’re sixteen.” All the tension falls from Dean with the words, anger draining from him all at once, defeat left behind in its place, and his brother’s face falls, head turning to the side, looking down at the sand.

Dean’s right. He knows Dean’s right, that of the two of them, his big brother is the rational one, the one still grounded in reality. Sam’s the truly fucked up one, the one who’s lost the plot completely, standing in front of his big brother and asking him to kiss him. He knows all these things…it’s just that he doesn’t care anymore.

Sometimes, home isn’t a place. Sometimes, home is a person

Standing on a beach, half moon shining above them, his brother cut from light and shadow, beautiful and ethereal and the single best thing Sam has ever known, and Sam thinks: this is how his world ends. How it ends and then begins again. He doesn’t know what shape it will take, if Dean will be with him or not, but at least he’ll know he tried.

“We can’t go back to the way things were,” Sam tells him quietly, the words almost an apology. “And if you feel the same way...it’s probably going to happen eventually, anyway. And it’ll feel guilty and wrong, and we’ll try to sweep it under the rug and we’ll never talk about it, and it’ll be this twisted, fucked up secret. But if we do it because we want to, because we’re being honest, it could be something better than that. It could be something amazing.”

“This could never be okay,” Dean whispers.

“Maybe not,” Sam agrees. “But it could still be something right.”

Dean huffs, a scoffing breath, and Sam reaches out, catches the angle of his brother’s jaw with the tips of his fingers, turns Dean’s face to look at him. Dean’s eyes are so green in the moonlight, filled with fear, dark heat trapped beneath, and Sam wants to break through the fear, know the depth of that heat, held in check for so long.

“Kiss me, Dean,” he whispers.

“Goddammit, Sammy,” Dean breathes, and then lunges, grabbing Sam’s face with both his hands.

Their mouths meet with sudden savagery, desperation and need driving them, lips bruised with impact, opening like they want to devour each other, tongues sliding slick and hot, Dean’s fingers climbing into Sam’s hair and twisting the strands into his fist, brother’s body pressed against his, soft and hard, firm and warm, and Sam groans into Dean’s mouth, tongue circling his brother’s, hands sliding over his brother’s shoulders, down his back, pulling him tighter, closer. It feels like everything, too much and not enough and he needs more, can barely stand the way it feels, heat spiraling through him, setting his heart at a slow tilt, every nerve in his body suddenly aware and alive, feeling every inch of Dean against him. Hungry, they’re both so hungry, kissing like they’re starving, and he wants this so much, but he wants to savor it even more, wants to make it last forever.

Dean pulls back, breaking the kiss, his green eyes glazed, heavy-lidded and filled with dark heat, plush lips pink with the force of their kiss, and there’s a question written in the lines of his face, the concerned pull of his brows, like he’s asking for forgiveness or permission, or both.

Sam pulls him in again, mouths meeting in a sweet collision of tongues, and it’s slower this time, glorious and sublime the way Dean’s tongue circles his, wicked and languid, like he wants to taste every bit of Sam and he has all the time in the world to do it. His brother kisses like an August afternoon, scorching, lazy heat that consumes everything, and Sam can barely stand before it, Dean’s passion telegraphed in every move, every touch. 

Sam’s knees weaken with the onslaught, and he lets them bend, pulls Dean down with him, still kissing until they’re kneeling in the sand, hands pulling at each other, mouths fused together, lost in the taste and feel of each other. His mouth never leaving Dean’s, he leans backward until his back falls against the sand, weight of Dean landing on top of him. Dean’s body pressed against his, every muscle, every line and curve, and if Sam hadn’t been sure before, he is now.

There’s probably a special circle in Hell made just for people like him; there's probably one with his name written on it right now, waiting for him, and he deserves it. He knows he deserves it. He’s fucked up and sick and stupid.

He doesn’t care.

How can he? So much trust and love, so many years. It’s Dean.

It’s  _ always  _ been Dean.

Stretched beneath his brother’s body in the sand, he feels the breath fill his lungs, the rushing of his blood in his veins, roaring like the pounding of the waves, electric and alive, a live wire arcing against the beach, brilliant, sharp and beautiful. Dean’s breath rushes to fill him, billowing and whispering into the secret places inside him, the empty, sad places he’d never understood, each one suddenly revealed, tide pulling back to reveal shells like tiny, intricate bones. Dean breathes into him, tongue sweeping across his; incredible, indescribable relief, everything clear, crystalline and suddenly clicking into place and this— _ this _ is what he’d missing, wanting, all this time, just this.

He puts his hands all over his brother’s body, skin hot beneath the thin cover of his t-shirt, muscles smooth and tight and trembling against his palms, and Sam wants to map the patterns of freckles on his skin, wants to touch each one with the tip of his tongue, trace out the shape of his brother’s name between them. Pulls him tight and closer, needing, wanting, and please. Please, let him feel the same.

“Sammy.” Syllables of his name, breathed out against his mouth, and it’s everything. Everything he wants, he needs.

Hands sliding down his brother’s shoulders, gliding up the skin along his waist, pulling his shirt up, and he needs to feel all of Dean against him now, bare skin to bare skin.

Dean rises up slightly, those deep green eyes boring into his, asking silently one last time. Sam doesn’t need him to ask; never did.

Sam pulls him in for another hard, deep kiss, and then they shed their shirts like snakeskin, bodies writhing against each other as they fall together. Dean traces a slow line against Sam’s collarbone, tongue spiraling out and licking upward to the point beneath his chin, biting along the angle of Sam’s jaw. Their mouths collide, clumsily this time, but it feels right, taste of Dean’s tongue as it slides across his, fingers fumbling at Dean’s belt between them. 

He doesn’t really know how any of this works, but he trusts Dean to guide him around the curves, and Dean does, batting Sam’s hands away from his belt, kissing out from Sam’s mouth, tongue trailing down his throat, along his collarbone to the hollow between, circling the shape with a twist of his tongue that makes Sam shiver. Dean doesn’t stay long, tongue moving down and outward, tracing over one of Sam’s nipples, flicking against the tip, and then he kisses the skin, biting and licking his way down Sam’s stomach, hands undoing the buckle at Sam’s waist with practiced ease.

He drags Sam’s jeans down over his hips, pausing to yank off Sam’s shoes before he pulls the jeans the rest of the way down, tugging them free and tossing them aside, boxers peeled away last. He lifts Sam’s hips then, jeans pushed under the small of Sam’s back, boxers spread out beneath his ass, and it’s probably a futile gesture against the sand, but Dean makes it anyway, smoothing out the material before he lowers Sam’s body, sliding up between Sam’s thighs, elbows hooked underneath Sam’s legs.

“Fuck, Sammy,” Dean breathes, and Sam can feel the rush of Dean’s breath over his skin, cock aching hard and twitching against the feel. Dean licks a slow, deliberate line up the length of Sam’s cock, teasing underneath the head, and Sam stiffens, hissing, trying not to come then and there. He’s never felt anything so amazing, never felt anything but his own hand and he had no idea a tongue could feel this fucking incredible. Dean licks away the dribble of Sam’s precome, tonguing the slit, and Sam whimpers, fingers clutching uselessly at the back of Dean’s head.

Dean moves lower, tongue swirling over Sam’s balls and then beneath, between his cheeks, tip pressing against Sam’s hole. He circles it, tongue slow and teasing, and then licks with the flat of his tongue, leaving Sam shivering, gasping for breath. Sam can  _ feel _ his brother’s hum of satisfaction in the moment before Dean thrusts his tongue inside Sam’s ass.

Sam jolts against the sand, hips leaping into the air, and Dean grabs him, pushes him back down and holds him there, forcing him to lie still and take it as he curls and twists his tongue inside Sam’s body, leaving Sam insensate, words forgotten, reduced to breathy moans and hissing pleasure, Dean taking him apart moment by moment from the inside out. Swirling and licking him like a candy cane from the inside out until he begs, back arching up from the sand, thrusting against Dean’s tongue, pleading for more.

Dean’s fingers slip inside him, hard and unrelenting and everything he needs to feel, tips crooking and twisting inside Sam until Sam’s writhing against the sand, imploring Dean to fuck him.

Dean pulls from Sam, sitting up. Turning his head, he spits across the sand and then takes his own shirt in hand, wiping at his mouth and across his tongue before he tosses it away. Eyes heavy-lidded and fixed on Sam’s, he spits into his hand this time, fist gliding up the curve of his cock, and he’s beautiful, naked beneath the moon and perfect in every way.

He bends and slides up Sam’s body, inner elbow hooking beneath Sam’s knee and pulling it with him until he’s looking at Sam eye to eye, hard length of his cock pressing against Sam’s hole.

“You’re sure?” Dean asks, his voice a rough rasp.

“God, yes, please,” Sam begs, mouth rising to claim his brother’s.

Dean kisses down into him, hips curling and then thrusting, cock pushing inside Sam with a thin sweet burn, fire from the inside out as Dean’s body meets his, flush together. Full, fuck, he’d never known he could feel so full, pleasure and pain circling through him until pleasure wins out, Dean trembling against him, holding there as he lets Sam adjust, kissing Sam’s mouth with small, gentle kisses, teeth nipping at Sam’s lower lip in the moments between. He doesn’t move until Sam does, Sam lifting his hips, wanting to feel more. 

Dean draws back, cock slipping almost the edge before he bucks his hips, rushing to fill Sam with a thrust that drives all the air from his body, explosions of pleasure inside him, bursting behind his eyes like fireworks, and he grabs hold of Dean, hands sliding down his brother’s back, wet with light sweat, gliding down over the firm curve of Dean’s ass. He lifts the leg Dean left lying against the sand, hooking it around his brother’s body, tilting his hips upward, wanting to feel Dean deeper inside him. 

He wants Dean so badly, can hardly believe Dean wants him too, that this is actually happening. They move together, hips locked in a give and take tattooing an inexorable rhythm against the sand, mouths fused with molten heat, Dean’s free hand clenched in Sam’s hair as he thrusts, shuddering and rocking inside Sam, driving harder and harder into Sam until they’re both moving frantically, losing their synchronous rhythm as Sam’s mind fractures with the sensations, heat pooling low in his belly, pleasure rising up from the base of his spine and consuming him as he cries out, needing Dean to touch him.

Dean’s fingers relax in Sam’s hair, releasing him before he reaches down between their bodies, hips curling as he thrusts into Sam even harder. His fingers skate the line of Sam’s cock and then close around it, tugging as he sinks deep inside Sam’s body, and Sam stiffens, spine arching, eyes flying open wide.

“It does feel right,” Dean whispers, staring right into his eyes, and then bows his head to kiss Sam, fingers stroking Sam’s dick, cock driving into Sam with relentless pleasure, and Sam moans into Dean’s mouth, quivering and shaking as he comes like a rocket, cock spurting hot and thick between their bellies, across Dean’s fingers. 

Dean twists his wrist and slams into Sam again, changing the angle, and Sam’s eyes roll back in his head, world whiting out as his cock explodes, spattering them both all the way to their chests. Muscles gridlocked, he yanks his mouth from his brother’s, crying out against the night, and he’s come a lot of times in his life but it’s never been like this, never been this complete ecstasy that shatters his mind, Dean inside him and all around him, wringing out every last bit of pleasure until he’s limp against the sand, quaking with aftershocks.

It’s more than he ever imagined it could be, everything he’d never dared to hope. He opens his eyes and Dean is there, gorgeous and lined by moonlight, eyes full of fiery need, bending his neck to kiss Sam, and Sam is consumed.

The most beautiful thing he’s ever seen or known and Dean burns like a collapsing star against him, pulling him in endlessly, now and for the rest of his life. 

He is marked, branded, and nothing will ever be the same. He can’t go back. He won’t. He loves _ Dean _ . 

Forever.   
  



	7. Chapter 7

_Present Day_

  
  


Forever.

 _Forever_ , he’d thought, with the conviction only a sixteen-year-old could have. _Forever_ , he’d vowed, with a fire in his heart and a savagery in his soul. A boy made of paper, a soldier with a collapsible fold held together by stitches and bailing wire. 

_Forever_ , he’d sworn then. 

_Forever_ , he swears now.

He’d told Castiel this was the place he’d fallen in love for the first time, but that isn’t quite right. It’s the place where he’d finally realized he was in love. That he had been for a long time—maybe all his life. 

Sixteen or six hundred and ten, it would always be Dean. Always had been. Always will be.

The clouds rush by, so high above him he can barely feel the force that moves them, wind whispering in his hair. They fly like time in fast forward, glinting gold as they tear apart, thin, candy coating against the darkening sky.

He knows what it means.

“Sam.” Castiel’s whisper is forlorn.

Sam hears a footstep behind him, and he turns.

Her hair falls in short, black ringlets around her face, dark skin shimmering like bronze in the sunlight. She’s beautiful, ethereal, features too perfect to be made of the mortal world, inescapable gravity at the center of her. 

Brown eyes wise beyond their years meet Sam’s, her lips red and full of promise.

Across the ocean, the sun is setting in a golden-red haze that makes her burn like a goddess. He knows her name, but it doesn’t seem right to speak it out loud. 

She calls him by name instead.

“Hello, Sam.”

Castiel steps between them, a visible line in the sand, hand closed into furious fists held tight at his sides.

“Castiel,” she greets him with an incline of her head.

Sam steps forward, placing a hand on Castiel’s shoulder, and Sam can feel the tension coiled in his muscles, anger on a barely tethered leash, sharp teeth gnashing at the very edge. 

“Go, Sam,” Castiel snaps with the barest turn of his face. “I’ll protect you.”

Sam shakes his head, fingers squeezing the muscles of Castiel’s shoulder. “No. It’s time.”

“Dean would want—”

“Dean isn’t here,” Sam cuts him off, gentle.

The fight leaves Castiel completely with those words.

“It’s time, Cas.” Sam turns him, pulls him in close and hugs him, feeling the surprise run through Castiel in the moment before he surrenders.

He pulls Castiel close, feels him completely, inhales the scent of him, and then steps back, releasing him. Scent of sand and sea as he pulls away, and it’s what he would have wanted, to be here, to remember, to be in the company of his last true friend.

“I’m ready,” Sam says as he turns to her.

“It’s an honor,” she says. “Sam Winchester.”

He’s died before. At this point, it’s almost second nature. But this time is the end. It’s for good, the final count, all chickens come home to roost.

“You’ve nothing to repent for,” she tells him, pulling him in close. “You did well, Sam. It’s time to go home.”

He falls into her.

*

Darkness first, and then…

Slow awareness, solid ground beneath him, his body lying against the earth. From all around comes the smell of summer, grass and flowers on the sweet, light breeze. His eyes flutter open to millions of pinpoints of light studding the night sky like diamonds, the sugar-spun luminescence of the Milky Way glowing at its center, such beauty and brilliance that for a moment he is astounded, his lungs ceasing to draw breath.

Breath…breathing… He can feel the hard warmth of the earth beneath him, every nerve ending connected to dirt and grass sending signals to his brain, feel the night breeze across his skin, gentle and comforting, see the night sky strung out above him with such clarity it takes his breath away.

Breathing, feeling, sensations and sights crowding his brain and he is…

Alive?

He sits up with suddenness, arms bracing, fingers digging into the soft earth beneath him. Alive…how can he be alive? He’d accepted Billie’s embrace, the universes’ final tally on the Sam Winchester death count, willingly stepping into darkness for the final time. He’d taken his last moment, said his last goodbyes to his favorite memories, so how can he be…?

Had Castiel somehow saved him again? Sent him elsewhere? Castiel, who had saved him so many times, trying to stave off the end, prolong his life the way Dean had demanded. But no…even Castiel had accepted his decision in the end. 

A sound comes from his left, slow movement that turns his head in that direction.

The Impala gleams in the moonlight, every curve of her sharp and clean and incredibly defined, edges like fine diamonds cut to perfection. The shadow of a man lies in silhouetted blackness across her hood, back resting against the gleaming windshield, light just touching the edges of his features.

Sam would recognize him anywhere. Blind, deaf—his memory could be erased and he’d still know, deep down in his bones somehow, so much a part of him that it could never be separated from his soul.

“Dean,” he whispers.

The shadow of the man stirs, rising from the windshield, slowly at first, as if he isn’t sure what he’s heard, or if he’s heard anything at all. Head turning to the right, moonlight scattered as it crosses his features—and then he sees Sam. Sam knows the moment it happens; can see the way his brother goes still, as if he can’t believe what he’s discovered. And then Dean is moving, sliding from the hood of the Impala, feet touching down to grass, quick whisper of his steps through their length as he hurries.

Sam rises to his feet to meet him, night wind whispering through his hair, sending it in a cascade across his face. He sweeps it back, not wanting to miss a moment of what he’s seeing, heart rising suddenly inside his chest, beating unsteady with hope and relief and love.

Dean stops before him, cut from sharp moonlight and steeped shadows, the green of his eyes caught by the light. They’re filled with wonder, amazement and more love than Sam has ever seen.

They both breathe slowly, night air filling them, sweet scent of grass lingering, neither of them moving, as if both afraid that if they breathe too hard the other might vanish, a dream finally realized taken from them. Slowly, Sam reaches out, hand rising to his brother’s face, fingertips skimming the curve of Dean’s cheek. Solid, real, warm skin beneath his touch, life thrumming inside his brother’s body and this can’t be true, can’t be happening.

But it is true. It’s _real_. Dean had died so many years ago, died to save the world and stop God, and sent Sam off with a final wish for Sam to live on, to have his life, to have a wife and children and grandchildren and to die old and happy and done. Dean’s dying wish, and he had fulfilled it, lived it; known all of those things, time finally coming to find him when his heart had begun to give out. 

He had lived his life the best and fullest he knew how, and he had never truly been alone, but some part of him had always been lonely. Shape of a hole in his heart cut with the name Dean Winchester, an emptiness, a shadow that had never left him, a longing in his soul that had never ceased, some part of him always counting down the minutes, the hours, the years until he would see his brother again.

See his brother again…in heaven.

Heaven. He’s in heaven, with Dean and it’s—fuck. For the first time in forever everything inside him feels _right_.

Dean before him, drenched in moonlight and shadow, and he looks like seventeen, like forty-one, as beautiful and present as he had ever been in life, heat radiating from his body into Sam’s fingertips, eyes deep green and astounded as Sam feels.

“You’re here,” Dean whispers, and Sam can feel the tremor in his brother’s body like the prelude to an earthquake, everything about to open wide.

“Finally,” Sam breathes back, thumb brushing across his brother’s lower lip before he leans in, dips his head, and kisses his brother’s mouth.

Sweet, beautiful taste, Dean’s lips parting, mouth rising to meet his, eager and opening, and Sam wants it all, wants to know every line and curve of his brother again, memory pressed into him like a flower between pages, preserved forever but dead and empty; wants to make it bloom, breathe it into life all over again, taste and feel and pluck the petals one by one, making way for new ones to grow.

His brother’s hands come up, touching both sides of Sam’s face, cupping it gently, as if Sam were a fragile thing that could shatter if Dean weren’t careful. As if Sam could be snatched from him at any second and Sam understands, he knows, fuck, he _knows_. The long, endless years without Dean, without this, and he can scarcely believe it’s happening, is just as afraid that Dean might disappear, but he’s here, and it’s real, and be damned if he isn’t going to experience it for everything it’s worth. They’ve both waited too long.

He reaches out, hands sliding up through his brother’s short hair, around to the back of his skull and closing there, pulling Dean into the kiss, harder, deeper, need igniting in Sam, spark to an inferno, and Dean responds in kind, hands tangling and pulling in Sam’s hair, rising from the balls of his feet to meet Sam’s kiss, tongue circling Sam’s with an artful, heated grace, and Dean always was an amazing kisser and fuck, Sam has _missed_ this. 

Taste and feel of his brother, but also the scent, the heat of him, the realness of him against Sam, the tilt of his head and the sound of his laugh, the scattering of his freckles and the way he was always so fragile even though he made himself be so tough. Strong, Dean was always so strong despite the way he felt everything so deeply, a contradiction Sam had always loved, and he’s finally here, in Sam’s arms again, and they have all the time in the world to talk and laugh and touch. But right now they need _this_ :

Sam’s tongue circling his brother’s, hands sliding down his body, over the contour of his muscle and bone, reveling in the feel of how finely Dean is put together, the way Sam’s hands splay across the small of his brother’s back in the instant before they glide to claim the round curve of his brother’s ass, pulling Dean’s hips against his. Bodies pressed together beneath moonlight, hot hardness of Dean pushed between his thighs, warmth of his body all through Sam, down to his bones, his heaven-made bones that will get to know this forever.

“Missed you, Sammy,” Dean’s words fall against his lips in a fevered rush. “Fuck, I missed you.”

There’s no hesitation between them here, no reason to hold back, finally freed from the pain and guilt of their mortal lives, and they’re free to love each other, to let it show without reservation. They fall together to the ground, soft earth and sweet grass beneath Sam’s back, Dean above him, heat of his body molded against Sam’s, mouths fused together, breathing out hard, and it’s everything Sam remembers, everything he’s needed for so long, the piece that makes him whole, that makes the world right.

Dean strips them both down slowly, lips and tongue tracing out the lines and curves of Sam’s muscles like he’s trying to taste every inch of him until he sides between Sam’s thighs, pink of his tongue curling out to gather the precome glistening at the tip of Sam’s cock, Sam’s hips jerking involuntarily, hiss of pleasure escaping him. Sliding lower, searing Sam on the tip of his tongue, taking him with long, slow twists until Sam’s writhing against the grass, begging Dean to fuck him.

Dean slides up his body, cock pressing against Sam, teasing at the entrance, smirk on his lips that Sam has missed so much it makes his heart hurt to see it, fills him with joy and sadness and a thousand other emotions all at once.

“I love you,” Sam gasps, thrusts with his hips and catches his brother’s mouth, swallows the sound Dean makes against Sam’s words.

“Love you,” he whispers again, grips Dean’s hip hard with his hand and shoves upward, feels Dean thrust to fill him, and God, it’s fucking perfect, exquisite, obscene. His thighs wrapped around Dean, one leg pushed up, other draped over and across Dean’s back, heel of his foot digging into the base of Dean’s spine. He can feel Dean’s heartbeat, frantic pounding through the thin cage of his ribs, the thundering pulse and rush of blood under freckled skin, every expansion of his lungs, gasping out Sam’s name when he exhales. The sweet shiver and writhe of him against Sam’s body, the wicked twists of his hips, nails digging deep, sweat-slicked trails down Sam’s spine, arms squeezing him tight. Dean’s mouth, wet and hot, fused to Sam’s, and there’s nothing like this, never has been, never will be, ever again.

Dead and gone and back again, it doesn’t matter. They’re inseparable. They’re forever. They’re _this_.

“I went there,” Sam whispers, barely drawing back from his brother’s mouth. “Shell Beach. The first time we…” He trails off, biting at Dean’s lower lip, tongue flashing across the indentation he leaves behind. “I died there…” hips thrusting up into his brothers, “and my every last thought…” hissing out as Dean drives deep, “waiting for death to come…” hand closing around the angle of his brother’s jaw, staring deep into Dean’s eyes, “was of you.” 

“God, Sam…” Dean shudders against him, hips shoving deep, green eyes wide, hot and dark, and Sam cries out in pleasure.

“I remembered…everything,” Sam gasps, shivering, twisting, hands skidding over Dean’s skin. “It was...” Dean rushing to fill him, stealing the breath from his lungs, “it was always you.”

“I love you, Sammy.” Dean’s eyes, fierce and bright in the moment before he dips his head, claims Sam’s mouth. Dean’s so beautiful, shark fin slicing through Sam’s heart, tip breaking water before it sinks, cutting deep.

And oh, God, strong fingers wrapping around the head of his cock, loving circle dragging up and down the length, thumbing over the slit, and Sam cries out, muscles clenching, spine curving, arching up into Dean

“Yeah, Sam. Let me see it.” Rasping words against the line of Sam’s jaw, flash of tongue against his pulse point, clever twist of fingers against his cock, and the world collapses inward, imploding with the force. He spills hard, slicking the space between their bellies, world going white, and nothing exists except the groan of his brother’s approval, the slow and steady rocking of Dean’s hips cock filling him, fingers circling him tightly, relentless in their rhythm, and black spots dance on the inside of Sam’s eyes, shifting into red as he heaves into the sensation of his brother inside him.

“Just like that,” Dean rasps, voice cracking on the last syllable, whole body going tense around and inside Sam.

“Fuck. Sam.” Fingers clenching hard into the length of his hair, into the bone of his shoulder, and he can feel Dean flex inside him, pulse and groan, shuddering and falling hard into Sam’s body, colliding with the force of gravity, clumsy, hard and high as he bites out Sam’s name, spelling it out with teeth against Sam’s throat, the clenching of his hands. And Sam moves, picking up the rhythm, riding out the throes of Dean’s orgasm, watching his brother’s face contort with pleasure so intense it almost looks like pain.

When it’s finally over, they crumple in a heap of tangled bodies, curling into each other.

The pad of Dean’s thumb, circling over his lips, riding up the line of his cheek, and he turns his face into the caress.

“It wasn’t the same without you,” Dean tells him. “I mean, you were here, but it was just a memory, things we’d already done. It wasn’t _you_.”

“I missed you so much.” Sam can barely find the breath to speak the words. “We have so much time to make up for.”

“We’ve got eternity to do it,” Dean says, green eyes warm, lips curving in a smile.

Most people in heaven get to relive their memories forever, visit the moments they loved best whenever they want. But Sam and Dean will get to make new ones, from now until forever, and they’ll never be apart again. 

Never again, Sam thinks, clutching Dean closer, holding him tight.

They lie there in the grass for a long time, breathing in and out, hands running over each other’s skin, skimming muscles, tracing scars old and new, feeling the solid warmth and weight of each other.

“Shell Beach,” Dean whispers. “I’ve never been there. Since I’ve been here.”

Sam pushes his head back into the grass, eyes searching for Dean’s. “Why not?”

Dean meets his gaze and then looks away. “Because that night was…” Dean sighs, eyes grazing against the edge of Sam’s. “I sent you off to live a life, Sam. I figure you lived it.”

“I did,” Sam says, and then shakes his head, eyes never leaving his brother’s. “But I missed you every second, Dean. Every single second.”

Dean’s eyes are so green in the moonlight, so fragile and so trying not to be, his voice gritty as he asks, “You never once regretted it?”

“Not once.” The words leave Sam with utter conviction, eyes locked on his brother’s. “Not you. Not _ever_.”

The smile that curves Dean’s lips renders him so beautiful Sam can hardly stand to look at him, gorgeous beyond the hand of any artist, beyond the hand of God himself, designed by something greater than either.

“Me neither,” Dean says, admiration and love the whole of him, and it’s so unlike Dean that Sam stills until Dean bends his neck, lips pressing against Sam’s.

They hold each other in silence after that, just breathing, Dean’s face fitted to the groove of Sam’s neck, hot breaths against his pulse, hand reaching to find Sam’s, fingers twining together.

“Come on,” Dean whispers, finally drawing back from Sam, his eyes glittering beneath the moonlight. “I want to see it.”

Dean pulls from him then, rising to his feet and taking Sam with him. And Sam thought he’d feel different, that he’d feel emptier without Dean inside him, without his brother’s weight pressing against him, but he doesn’t feel the separation at all, the two of them as one even as they stand apart, two souls so completely intertwined they can never be torn asunder, neither God nor Death able to keep them apart. They’d saved the world sometimes, sacrificed it sometimes too, in the name of each other. And here they are, still together, the world still turning. Patchwork pieces of cloth sewn together, cut solid against the sky as they walk, their story known, made their own, not arranged across the stars in a vague language, no destiny to call them; just two brothers, soulmates and lovers who have paid more than enough for the privilege.

They’re both dressed again, feel of cotton and flannel, and Sam barely thinks about it, the feeling so natural it slides into place like a second skin.

Together, they walk through the forest towards the moon, black branches fading, trunks thinning, the world opening wide.

Sand and sea and moon above, and in the distance, Sam can see them.

Two boys locked in a passionate embrace beneath the summer moon, waves pounding against the shore beyond them. Sixteen and twenty, hearts young and old at the same time, lost in each other and discovering love for the first time; love that began and never ended, stretching through eternity to forever, to this very moment.

Sam reaches out, twines his fingers through his brother’s, holding and squeezing tight. 

“That’s my boy,” Dean whispers.

Sam turns his head and tilts his face, pulls Dean in and kisses him.

“Always.”

  
  
  


FINIS

[ ](https://ibb.co/HDqbG4J)

_I don't believe in fate_  
_No psychic vision_  
_But when things fall into place, superposition_  
_In any universe, you are my dark star_

  
_I want you, to want me_  
_Why don't we rely on chemistry?_  
_Why don't we collide the spaces that divide us?_  
_I want you, to want me_

_~Superposition, Young the Giant_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has been floating around in my head for over two years now, Sam and his yearning, the beach and the motel, the boys realizing their love... And in this, the final year of our show, I wanted to write a love letter to the series, to the Winchesters, to their epic love and their soulmated, shared heaven. Something that harkens back to the style of the early days of fanfic in this fandom. Something simple, something pure, something innocent and hopefully beautiful. As someone said to me, it's not the most twisty-turny story I've ever written. And it isn't meant to be. It's meant to be love. I am going to miss these boys with an incredibly broken heart, and I hope I did them justice here. Fifteen years of my life dedicated to this show, and I don't regret a second.
> 
> All my stories have a special place in my heart, but this one feels different. This won't be my final story in this fandom, but it is, at least at present, my loving tribute, and in a way, my goodbye. I hope for something like this for them. And if canon doesn't give it to us, you can bet your ass I'll be here writing more fic to fix it (;
> 
> Big THANK YOU'S to my beta, silver9mm, who's always there when I need her. Love you, babe! And to my artist, Nisaki, who I've had the absolute privilege and pleasure to work with TWICE now. Your art is so GORGEOUS and just SPOT ON for the entire feeling of this fic. You really captured Sam's longing and the wistfulness I tried to impart in the narrative. I know the watercolors took you so long, but you were right. It fit the story best. You nailed it, darling, and I can't thank you enough for all this beautiful art. You outdid yourself once again! <3
> 
> Other thanks goes to Young the Giant, whose song, 'Superposition' played all spring and summer long on my alternative stations last year, and became the theme song of this story, keeping the flame of writing it alive in my heart. I recommend you go listen to it RIGHT NOW.
> 
> And lastly, but not leastly, thank YOU, my readers. For being here all these years. For all your kudos and feedback and support and love. I hope you enjoyed this story, and I LOVE YOU ALL <333


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